JSA: If Looks Could Kill
by Bruce Wayne
Summary: Continuation of the 1961-based Justice Society of America story "Atrocity." Chapter 14 is now up! Final chapter of this part of the story. Will Batman & Sandman be able to cheat death?
1. Chapter 1

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"The coppers are on to us, Danny," whispered a hoarse, urgent voice.  
  
Danny Martin glanced sideways at Timmy O'Shea. O'Shea's poker-straight flame-red hair was in disarray, his bright blue eyes pinpoints of agitation.  
  
"You're a good man, Timmy," said Danny with a grin, "but a Nervous Nelly. If the coppers are givin' us the eye, it's all the more reason we have for plantin' our little surprise package and goin' on with our business."  
  
Martin lit a cigarette off the butt of the one that had been burning against his lips a second earlier and tossed the dying stub on the hard tile floor of London's Heathrow Airport.  
  
An old custodian, who looked like the brother of the broom he was pushing, stopped his sweeping and glared at Danny Martin for an instant. Martin let his mouth spread wide in a grin and cocked his tweed cap a little more jauntily over his right eye. He shrugged his shoulders as he stabbed his hands into the pockets of his dark-green corduroy slacks and walked on. "But Danny," protested O'Shea, "if they see us plant this thing --"  
  
Martin's sharp look penetrated his shorter companion. O'Shea was clutching the briefcase containing the six sticks of dynamite against his chest like a mother protecting her child.  
  
"We're almost to the locker banks now, Timmy," said Martin. "We've got guns and likely the pansy-assed coppers don't. We've got the car waitin' for us outside. Tell me now, is it better that the coppers arrest us with a bomb in our possession?"  
  
But Danny Martin glanced over his right shoulder all the same. Fifty yards back down the corridor a man dressed in a worn suit and shiny black shoes studied a copy of the Times newspaper. Martin whispered the word "copper" under his breath and kept walking, half listening to the airport public- address system to try to pick up the security-code phrases that would alert him to the presence of Scotland Yard.  
  
Twenty paces away stood the locker banks he had targeted, adjacent to the baggage-claim area. A lot of people would be around when the dynamite sticks blew.  
  
O'Shea was talking again. "That one with the shiny shoes readin' the paper, Danny, I tell you he's on to us."  
  
"We're almost there, Timmy -- be easy, lad." Danny Martin craned his neck, openly looking over his shoulder. The man with the shiny shoes hadn't followed them, but by the way he stood and held the newspaper, he could be watching them.  
  
Danny Martin stopped beside the lockers. He turned and stared deliberately at the man with the shiny shoes. "A copper -- right you are, Timmy," he said to O'Shea. "Now give me the bag if you don't mind."  
  
The policeman, if he was one, looked across the baggage-claim section toward them.  
  
"He'll see us. They'll find the dynamite," said a worried O'Shea.  
  
"I've a way of fixin' that, Timmy," said Danny as he put the battered leather briefcase inside the locker, closed it and pocketed the key. He slipped his right hand under his coat and withdrew a vintage 1917 Colt .45- caliber handgun. He pointed the gun, stomping his foot to steady himself as he leaned into the shot.  
  
Martin pulled the trigger once, and the boom of the .45 thundered in the box of concrete, steel and glass surrounding him. The inquisitive stare of Shiny Shoes dissolved as his forehead split apart.  
  
A young woman standing nearby started to scream. Martin cooly raised the Colt and, aiming for the neck, shot her in the head.  
  
"The new cartridges you made up shoot a bit high, Timmy," was all he said as he pulled his hat low over his face and started to run.  
  
As Martin rounded a corner past the baggage area he could hear O'Shea's feet pounding the floor beside him. He slowed and then stopped.  
  
"Coppers!" he snarled. Two men in plainclothes, faces he knew as well as his own, were running toward him -- Sir Edward Hall of Scotland Yard and Tompkins of the Home Office. Martin aimed the chunky Colt at Hall and fired two quick shots. Hall threw himself against a pillar, and a pistol appeared in his hand.  
  
"The damn whistles now!" Danny Martin shouted, hearing police whistles blowing from behind. Gunfire from Hall and Tompkins hammered toward him. Timmy O'Shea cried out, and Martin turned. O'Shea's left hand was a bleeding stump and his face contorted in fear and agony.  
  
Martin's only thought was that O'Shea could tell where the bomb was hidden.  
  
"Lad," said Martin softly and he shot his friend twice in the face. As the red-haired man reeled back, Martin snatched up his compatriot's fallen .38- caliber revolver. He fired the pistol twice at the approaching police and started to run toward the Arrivals terminal.  
  
***  
  
Ted Grant looked at his long-time friend, Ted Knight. "Why am I carrying my attache case and my stuff bag when all you've got is a stuff bag? You're bigger and younger than I am. Here!" Grant shoved the attache case at the well-muscled brown-haired man beside him.  
  
"Carry your own damn briefcase!" Knight snapped.  
  
"Hell of a disrepectful way to talk to an old friend," Grant teased.  
  
"You try giving me that briefcase again, you'll see how damn disrepectful I can get!" Knight laughed, shoving the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world a little.  
  
Grant feigned left and slapped the attache case against Knight's exposed midsection. Knight grabbed at it reflexively as Grant let go and stepped away. People were looking at them, some of them had faces he recognized from the transatlantic flight from New York City.  
  
"I'm not going to carry your lousy attache case, Ted! I'm just going to leave it here, so help me!" Knight shouted after him.  
  
As Grant started to turn and say something, he heard his name paged over the public-address system. A disembodied but distinctly feminine voice directed him to go to the nearest courtesy phone. There was a message.  
  
To his far right, Grant spotted one of the phones and started walking toward it. He glanced back at Ted Knight who still held the attache case as though he were going to drop it to the terminal floor. He couldn't read lips, but he could tell what Knight was muttering as he started after him.  
  
Grant picked up the telephone receiver.  
  
An anonymous voice said, "Paging."  
  
"I'm Ted Grant, you have a message for me?"  
  
"One moment please, sir."  
  
Grant looked away. Knight was beside him, saying under his breath, "I'm not carrying your damn briefcase."  
  
"Yeah, but you're so much stronger than I am, and tall, really tall," pleaded Grant.  
  
Bullshit!" exclaimed Knight. "How come I'm always stronger and taller whenever there's something to carry? I'm what --? Two-inches taller than you are?"  
  
The sound of a new connection drew Grant's attention back to the phone. "Hello?" Grant said.  
  
"Hello, Ted? McNider here. Did you and the other Ted have a satisfactory flight?"  
  
"Yeah, just fine," Grant replied with a nod.  
  
"Ted, I know I was to have met both of you for dinner," continued Charles McNider, "but I wondered if I might beg off and promise London's best breakfast instead. Something unexpected has come up here."  
  
"Any problems?" Grant asked.  
  
There was a long pause, follwed by the sound of McNider clearing his throat. "Just the opposite, really. You might recall the German stewardess I mentioned to you some time ago. The one with long hair. It was just before we found out that False-Face had stolen the hundred canisters of VX nerve gas. Her name is Johanna Gruber."  
  
"Yeah, I remember. She was all you could talk about that night over dinner. Even with the gorgeous Diana there."  
  
"Quite. Well, I'd given her my telephone number and she called. We're, ah, having dinner here at my London apartment this evening. The two of you would be perfectly welcome, of course," McNider managed to add. "I'll just have the caterer bring some additional food."  
  
"You and Johanna Gruber, huh? Naw, breakfast will do just fine for Ted and me, if you're out of bed by then," Grant added wryly.  
  
"I really doubt that on a first date," said McNider, but not without a note of hope in his voice. "Thank you for the vote of confidence at any rate. I'll ring you up at your hotel, then come around and collect you and Ted for that breakfast so we can chat."  
  
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Grant advised him as the line clicked dead. Grant hung up.  
  
He looked at Ted Knight. "Well dinner's off. Charles says he has a hot date, a German stewardess he met," he explained.  
  
"Sure, he has a hot date, and I'm stuck with you," said Knight as he slammed Grant's attache case toward him.  
  
Grant laughed. "Come on, let's get our luggage and I'll buy you dinner."  
  
"Bribing me won't help," Cautioned Knight.  
  
Grant started toward the baggage-claim area, checking the overhead sign. He'd been hearing something odd for the last moment or so, and now he heard it again.  
  
"Is that a gunshot?" he said aloud.  
  
The sound came again. It was a gunshot. Then another and another.  
  
The sounds were louder each time. At the far end of the corridor, Grant saw a flurry of movement. A scream, shrill and piercing, sounded from there as well.  
  
Grant shoved his attache case at Knight and started to run toward the sounds. There was more gunfire, a faint-sounding police whistle, a shout -- he couldn't make out the words.  
  
"Ted!" Grant glanced once behind him. Ted Knight, holding the attache case, was running after him.  
  
Ahead, Grant saw a man running toward him. The man wore a hat pulled low over his face, a tweed jacket and dark slacks. Profiled for an instant as he turned, the mysterious figure revealed a revolver. "Aww, shit," Grant muttered. The man was less than a hundred yards from him.  
  
Behind the gunman, Grant could see uniformed policemen with their truncheons brandished.  
  
The man reloaded the revolver on the run as Grant charged toward him. The tweed-capped figure saw him, and just as he started to raise the revolver, Grant heard Ted Knight shout, "Hey! Over here! Police!"  
  
Abruptly, the fugitive stopped, his head snapping right. He was buying Knight for a half second, Grant told himself. Ted Grant rushed toward the man, the stuff sack swinging on its strap as he slammed it toward the gunhand.  
  
The revolver breathed fire, and the man holding it wheeled around as Grant let go of the strap. Grant pivoted, and his right leg snapped up and out. The revolver roared again as the bottom of Grant's shoe kicked into the gunhand. The gun flew out of the man's hand and across the corridor as he dropped to his knees.  
  
Ted Grant launched a kick toward the mean, sinister face, but in a defensive move, Danny Martin's hands flashed out. Something glittered as it fell from his left hand, making a metallic sound as it hit the floor. Martin grabbed at Grant's right ankle and pulled.  
  
Grant fell back, his balance gone. He twisted his body as he started going down and caught himself on his outstretched hands. Grant kicked with his left foot against his rival's head. He could feel the pressure release on his ankle, and he rolled on his back.  
  
"This tough nut wasn't about to give up now," Grant thought as he saw the man scramble up and grab for the thing that had fallen from his hand. As he jumped to his feet, Grant saw it. It was a key, a locker key.  
  
The suspect was moving toward a ventilation grate at the foot of the wall to his left.  
  
"The key!" shouted Grant, and he lunged forward. His opponent threw himself against the grate like a cornered animal, and his hands splayed over it. The sound of metal clinking against metal reached Grant's ears as he wrenched the clawing figure free of the wall, jerking him forward, off balance. Grant's right came back and hammered forward, his knuckles exploding as he unleashed a savage uppercut against the man's rock-hard jaw.  
  
His opponent's head snapped back, and his body went limp. Grant let the pathetic-looking shape fall. In the background, he heard a police whistle and the pounding of heavily shod feet.  
  
Ted Knight was on his knees beside the unconscious body of Danny Martin, peering through the grate. A blur of uniforms surrounded them both, and an authoritative voice informed them they were under arrest.  
  
Over the shouts and commands of the uniformed police, the loud murmurings of the crowd, and Ted Knight's vehement protestations, Grant heard someone calling his name.  
  
Sir Edward Hall, deputy superintendent of Scotland Yard, shouldered his way forward and shouted, "Release that man, the one with the blue suit and dark hair."  
  
Ted Knight wailed, "Hey, what about me?"  
  
Grant smiled at his friend. "Do I know you?" he said.  
  
"All right," responded Knight, "I'll carry the damn attache case!"  
  
"Who pays for dinner?" Grant asked as the police started to drag Knight off.  
  
"Okay, okay. I'll pay for dinner, too," Knight pleaded.  
  
Ted Grant grinned, and as Sir Edward Hall came up beside him, he said, "Sir Edward, that tall man over there with the brown hair is my friend. Helped me stop this creep, whoever he is."  
  
"Right." Hall turned away, calling to the uniformed officers, "That man as well. Release him immediately!"  
  
Then Hall turned to Grant. "He had a key," he said.  
  
"A locker key," replied Grant. "He shoved it down that grating before I could stop him."  
  
Hall summoned a uniformed sergeant at the far side of the crowd. "Bailey, remove that grating and search behind it immediately. Martin pushed the locker key through."  
  
"Right, sir!" responded Bailey.  
  
Hall was bending over the motionless body, trying to stir him. "Out. Unconscious. Damn the bloody luck."  
  
"Hit him too hard, I guess," Grant interjected.  
  
"What should one expect if he was hit by the former heavyweight champion of the world?" Hall said as he turned to Grant. The senior officer's voice dropped to a whisper as he informed his old friend, "Sound reason to believe this one and one other man, both IRA, planted an explosive device of some sort in one of the lockers. Our men are already going through the locker bank, but there are hundreds of lockers there. The officer we had observing their movements was shot to death, and this one --" Hall gestured to the unconscious man "-- this bastard shot his own mate, I'm afraid. Killed him instantly."  
  
Grant let out a long breath. "I know I'm just an old boxer, but why don't we help you with those lockers," he said.  
  
"The device could explode at any moment. A bomb disposal team is on the way," Hall said as he broke into a loping run.  
  
Grant called over his shoulder, "Hey, Ted!"  
  
Then Grant started to run as well.  
  
***  
  
The entire baggage-claim area had been cordoned off. Uniformed police, dark- covered members of the London Metropolitan Flying Squad and plainclothes officers were tearing through luggage on the floor before the lockers. A lead man moved from locker to locker and opened each using a set of master keys. The man with him inspected the inside, and if there was a case shouted to one of the plainclothesmen.  
  
"What can we do to help?" Grant asked Hall. "Just open suitcases?"  
  
"But carefully, there's no telling how the bomb might be disguised," replied Hall.  
  
Grant glanced at Ted Knight, wishing he could use his Gravity Rod. Knight had already dropped to his knees and begun sorting through a suitcase of clothing, and not very clean looking, either.  
  
Ted Grant found a space between one of the ragged ranks of overnight bags and dropped into a crouch. Taking a case, he started to open it, slowly. His palms were sweating.  
  
It had been five minutes by the watch on his left wrist when someone shouted, "Hey, we've got it!"  
  
Grant went to get up, the contents of a suitcase scattered in front of him. Half the clothes were women's clothes, expensive-looking things, although a bit large. He started to stuff the things back inside -- slips, bras, a pair of shoes in a plastic bag. There was something odd about them.  
  
He could hear one of the bomb-disposal experts shouting, "Clear the area. This thing's about to blow. There's less than a minute on the timer! Clear the area!"  
  
Grant started to his feet then stopped abruptly. At the bottom of the suitcase was another plastic bag. Inside it was a man's shoe.  
  
He almost felt like a voyeur, exploring someone else's suitcase, especially one belonging to a-- "A woman," he whispered, half aloud.  
  
Hall was shouting something to him, but Grant didn't look up. He took out the man's shoe. It was expensive, Italian.  
  
Hall shouted again, "Ted -- get out of here!"  
  
Grant swallowed hard. He held the man's shoe and the woman's shoe side by side. They were the same length, the same width. He threw them down, and plowed through the suitcase. A man's sweater and a man's turtleneck emerged, a pair of white crew socks, a pair of men's underpants. Finally a pair of faded blue Levi's.  
  
"Ted!" cried Hall.  
  
Grant looked toward the urgent face of the Scotland Yard man. He licked his lips.  
  
"I've got it! The bloody bastards lost this one," the voice of the bomb- disposal expert sounded.  
  
Grant looked down from Hall. He found the suitcase handle and lifted the luggage tag. He read the name out loud. "Johanna Gruber -- Johanna --"  
  
He looked back at Hall. "False-Face," he almost spat out the name. "The infamous European criminal. He's disguised as a woman, and he's with Charles McNider right now."  
  
"My God --" Hall's jaw dropped.  
  
Grant started to run. "Ted," he shouted over his shoulder, "hurry!"  
  
To be continued ... 


	2. Chapter 2

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Charles McNider smoothed his shirt under the waistband of his gray flannel slacks as he walked across the room.  
  
The door bell rang.  
  
As he donned his jacket, McNider walked down the three stairs that led from the living room to the small hallway entrance.  
  
McNider stopped at the doorway as the bell rang again. He caught his breath, straightened the midnight-blue ascot and the collar of his pale- blue shirt, the brass-buttoned blazer he left open as he reached for the doorknob.  
  
He opened the door to Johanna Gruber. Though he was supposed to be blind, McNider could see through his special dark glasses that the woman at his door was tall. The figure was pleasant, the face beautiful, he thought. Her hair was rich, full -- and he thought auburn -- though it was a little hard to tell from the tint of his special glasses. As he stepped into the doorway to welcome her, he could smell her perfume. It was the perfume she had worn aboard that flight from Germany some weeks back.  
  
It really wasn't that long ago, but the world had changed. False-Face had stolen one hundred canisters of the deadly VX nerve gas from a U.S. government shipment and would have released the contents of one of the canisters in Gateway City, had it not been for the efforts of the Justice Society of America. But False-Face had gotten away.  
  
McNider suddenly realized the woman was staring at him. "Is there anything wrong, Charles? You did expect me?" The voice was warm, soft and inviting.  
  
"Expect you. My dear, I have anticipated you since that wonderful telephone call." He pretended to search for her left elbow with his right hand to usher her inside. She wore a luxurious gray fur coat, the kind with the pelts sewn laterally rather than vertically, trimmed with black leather. She looked wonderful in it, he thought. As he helped her out the coat he said, "May I, my dear?"  
  
"Yes, thank you, Charles," came the soft reply.  
  
As she turned to face him, she smiled.  
  
McNider stepped back from her, but only a half step. She wore a black dress, the hem falling just slightly below her knees. A single strand of rich white pearls caressed a long alabaster neck. Pearl earrings to match graced her ears. The black leather handbag she clutched perfectly matched her shoes, which were high heeled. She was taller than he, he realized as he turned back to face her after he had hung her coat in the entrance closet.  
  
"You look lovely," he told her, almost compelled to say that.  
  
"Thank you, Charles. You flatter me. But ... but how can you tell?" She smiled again.  
  
Realizing that he was supposed to appear blind, McNider replied, "I can tell by the sound of your voice."  
  
Even the faintness of her German accent had something appealing about it, something very European that was hard to define. "Are we alone?" she asked, her left hand gently primping her hair.  
  
"Of course we are, my dear. May I offer you a drink?"  
  
"All right," she said, and still clutching her leather bag she walked with him up the three steps leading to the living room.  
  
It was a spacious and well-designed apartment. Dr McNider spent much time in London doing research for his crime articles and mystery novels that he wrote. The flat was much better than any small hotel room.  
  
McNider steered her toward the bar at the far side of the room. The apartment was perfect for an intimate dinner.  
  
"I wonder what you might like to drink, Fraulein Gruber," he asked.  
  
"Johanna," she corrected. "Perhaps a glass of white wine, Charles. Whatever you might choose for me."  
  
"White wine it is. A Chablis perhaps, or something more German -- a Hock as they were once called. A Rheinhessen?"  
  
"Rhine wine, I like that." She smiled.  
  
McNider found a bottle of Rhine and began to pour it into a glass.  
  
"You amaze me, Charles! How can you tell when to stop pouring before you spill?" she asked.  
  
He smiled at her. "Many years of practice, my dear."  
  
They had moved to the couch, and McNider sat beside her not knowing what to say. Something about her was totally different from other women he had met.  
  
He tried to compose himself when he started to hear the screeching tone of a telephone that had been left off the hook.  
  
"The phone," he said, "I must have forgotten to replace the receiver after I --"  
  
He heard a sneeze from beside him, a tiny sneeze calculated to draw his attention.  
  
Doctor McNider turned and looked at Johanna. She was smiling, picking up her handbag from the coffee table. Opening her handbag, she started to pick through it with her long fingers. "One of the difficulties of my profession," she said. "I move from place to place so frequently, I never seem to adjust to the climate."  
  
"Perhaps I should turn up the heat a bit or maybe I can write you a prescription if you know of any allergies that you may have," responded McNider. "I'd imagine being an airline hostess does take its toll in the sniffs-and-sneezes department." He smiled, starting to rise.  
  
Charles McNider felt himself freeze in midmotion. The gun in Johanna's right hand was poking him in the ribs.  
  
"Yes, being a flight attendant is difficult, but being a wanted fugitive is even worse -- Charles." The voice was a man's, Germanic, cultured, calculating.  
  
"My God!" McNider exclaimed.  
  
"Go ahead," the voice came back, "guess who I am."  
  
"Johanna," stammered McNider, "False-Face!"  
  
False-Face still looking like the beautiful Johanna, laughed, insanely loud. "Not bad for a blind man! I was afraid you were going to try to get into my pants before you found out."  
  
"Damn you!" McNider rasped. He threw himself at False-Face, clawing for the gun, but False-Face was quicker. As he sprang up from the couch, the pistol hammered against the right side of McNider's head.  
  
McNider rolled to the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table.  
  
He started to his feet, but the muzzle of the pistol was quickly pressing between his eyes and he remained motionless, on his knees. He cursed himself for being fooled so badly.  
  
"Charles," taunted False-Face, "you are going to die, and however rapidly or slowly death comes to you is entirely of your own making. I need to know all that you, and your numerous law enforcement sources know, everything dealing with my theft of the VX nerve gas canisters -- all of it." Then the voice changed to Johanna's again, and McNider was filled with revulsion. "Please, Charles," False-Face cooed.  
  
***  
  
Dr Charles McNider opened his eyes. The needle False-Face had jabbed into his neck made him feel vaguely hung over.  
  
False-Face sat on a barstool. McNider realized he was on the floor and his dark glasses were gone. He was now truly blind. He tried to move, but his hands were tied behind him. His ankles were bound, as well. He tried to speak, but there was something covering his mouth. Adhesive tape, he guessed.  
  
Beside False-Face, on the bar, was the gas-flamed chafing dish the caterer would have used to keep the poulet Marengo hot.  
  
If McNider could see, his eyes would had focused on the tiny object that was in the criminal's hand.  
  
"Having trouble, Charles?" False-Face spoke in Johanna's voice again, and then his own. "If you could see, my friend, what I have in my hands is an ordinary kitchen skewer. Allow me to describe in delicious detail what I will be doing since you are as a blind as a bat!" False-Face's face suddenly scowled. "Bat? I shouldn't remind myself of my primary nemesis from Gotham City. Ah, but I digress, Charles. I'm heating several of these skewers in the flame beneath the chafing dish. The chicken smells wonderful, by the way. My compliments to your caterer. If you have time, you might divulge who your caterer is, too. We have no time for drug therapy, as you physcians may say, to induce your truthfulness, and with some people -- as I'm sure you know, doctor -- certain drugs can indeed induce a heart attack -- and I don't wish you dead yet. I need the information that I am sure that you can provide far too greatly to risk your demise."  
  
False-Face smiled. If McNider could had seen it -- it was Johanna's smile.  
  
McNider felt sick at False-Face's words.  
  
"Before I begin with the red-hot skewers," False-Face continued, "the testicles perhaps, or the inner ear, and soon the eyeballs themselves." In a whimsical motion, False-Face covered his mouth with the palm of his left hand. "Oops, I forgot. You're already blind!" He laughed insanely loud again.  
  
The criminal tormentor continued on, "But before the fun and games, Charles, a word of advice. If the Hindus are right, and we return to this life again, and should you come back as a man instead of an ass, I might suggest that you ask a woman out only after you've first seen her in the nude."  
  
False-Face laughed, but it was Johanna's higher-pitched laugh. False-Face rose from the barstool with what McNider interpreted with his ears as a calculated taunt, smoothing his hands along his thighs. False-Face picked up one of the skewers and moved the few steps to him before dropping to his knees on the carpet. In his hands, False-Face held the red-hot, glowing skewer.  
  
McNider suddenly realized he was naked except for his boxer shorts and over- the-calf gray socks.  
  
He couldn't see the skewer, but in a searing stab of pain, he could feel it on his chest. He wanted to scream, but the tape covering his mouth made him gag.  
  
***  
  
The rotorthrob sound of the helicopter's blades seemed more pronounced to him now as the chopper moved low over the tree line. Ted Grant felt his stomach heave as the helicopter suddenly dipped, skimming the close-cropped grass, settling in beyond Marble Arch in a corner of Hyde Park. Doctor Charles McNider's apartment was less than four blocks away in Shepherd's Park.  
  
As the forward tip of the runner touched, Grant popped open the seat restraint, pushed the cabin door open and ducked as he jumped under the spinning rotors. He glanced back once. Inspector Hall and Tompkins of the Home Office were racing out behind him. Following them came two uniformed officers.  
  
Grant could hear Hall shouting to him, "Out of the park and three blocks straight down -- should be the far side of the street -- but I'll have a car here in under five minutes."  
  
"No time," Grant shouted back. His Wildcat equipment was still with his luggage back at Heathrow.  
  
If False-Face was with Dr Charles McNider, it was for one purpose only -- information about the investigation of the theft of the ninety-nine reamaining canisters of VX nerve gas. And after he got the information, or if by some miracle McNider was able to hold it back -- death!  
  
Grant was now out of the park, skidding on his heels. He ran, looking up the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ted Knight come up fast beside him.  
  
A hundred yards, then across the street -- that was all the distance that remained. Grant recognized the number of the building from Charles McNider's address. He dodged a truck and reached the middle of the street.  
  
He had to stop for an instant as a van bore down on him. He glanced behind him to see Knight skirt a classic MG. Hall, Tompkins and the two bobbies were at the curb, coming into the street.  
  
The van passed, and Grant brushed a Bentley's rear bumper. He threaded his way between a parked vintage Rover and an Austin, and leaped up the curb.  
  
He half sagged against the frosted-glass doorway of the red brick Victorian apartment house. The door was locked.  
  
"The bell," he heard Knight pant.  
  
"We try the bell, False-Face'll know," Grant gasped in reply.  
  
There were four bells indicating four apartments, each occupying its own floor. McNider had the top floor, Grant remembered.  
  
One of the bobbies was up beside him and Grant reached toward the man, grabbing his truncheon. "Gimme that, corporal." Grant rammed the club into the glass near the door handle. A jagged hole about the size of a grapefruit appeared. He quickly pushed his arm through, found the inside handle and released the lock.  
  
Withdrawing his hand, he threw his weight against the door, half stumbling inside.  
  
The floors and parts of the walls were composed of tiny segments of sparkling white and deep black tiles.  
  
A massive frost-glass globe hung from the ceiling and shed a soft glow over the foyer. An elevator encased in ornate brass caging and a winding staircase presented themselves to the left.  
  
Grant raced toward the stairs. "This way, hurry," he shouted, hearing Tompkins barking some sort of order behind him. Ted Knight and the corporal were nearest to Grant as he raced up the staircase three treads at a time.  
  
He reached the first landing, swung around it and continued to climb. The elevator would have been too slow, and the noise might have alerted False- Face causing him to kill if he hadn't already.  
  
At the second landing Knight was outdistancing him, moving at incredible speed up the stairs. He was moving like it was a matter of life and death -- because it was.  
  
Knight was past the landing now running, at such an angle that he appeared to be throwing himself ahead.  
  
Grant was taking two steps at a time. His arms were pulling him along the handrailing. He reached the landing. The bobby was beside him.  
  
At the top, Grant stumbled forward. He saw Knight already standing beside the door. Grant sagged back against the wall opposite the door and held his hand up to signal two policemen to wait.  
  
Grant started for the door, took a long step forward, put his weight on his right foot, and pivoted half right, his left foot snaking up toward the center of the lockplate in a martial arts kick.  
  
As he spun out of the kick, the door burst open and Ted Knight flew past him.  
  
Grant rushed in behind him. A woman, tall and beautiful, held a kitchen skewer. McNider was writhing on the carpet, the scant blond hair on his chest on fire.  
  
Ted Grant felt his jaw set as Knight dived toward the woman. But the woman, who had to be False-Face, stepped aside as Knight hurtled over and landed on McNider and smothering the flames on his chest.  
  
False-Face raised his pistol and Grant threw himself into a forward roll as the gun thundered over his head.  
  
As Grant came out of the roll at the edge of the coffee table, he saw one of the bobbies go down, and heard a cry of pain.  
  
Grant's arm shot up, the edge of his left hand connecting hard against the inside of False-Face's forearm, deflecting the muzzle of the gun. Another shot rang out, and the large mirror above the fireplace exploded into tiny spikes of lethal glass like a fragmentation grenade.  
  
Ted Grant's right fist shot forward, the middle knuckles going for the center of the feminine-looking face. The auburn head snapped back, and Grant felt a stabbing surge of pain in his groin. He threw himself left as he went down, seeing a second kick miss, its high arc restricted by the tight skirt. Grant realized the skirt was all that saved him from having been crippled by the death-merchant's vicious kick.  
  
A look of surprise came over the woman's face as she appeared to recognize Ted Grant. "The heavweight champion of the world?!" she exclaimed.  
  
A pistol coughed from behind him, Sir Edward Hall's weapon. False-Face threw himself to the right, and back, and the shot whispered past. Grant saw the impact as the chafing dish crashed off the top of the bar behind False-Face. An instant later a sheet of flame rose from behind the bar.  
  
False-Face fired again, and Grant heard Sir Edward's voice scream out, "My leg -- damn the bloody bastard!"  
  
Two more shots echoed into the room. Bottles behind the bar shattered, and the alcohol fed the flames. Tongues of fire shot up and licked at the ceiling as Grant rolled to his right, still doubled up with the pain.  
  
He could see Knight moving, hear him shouting, "You dastardly villian!"  
  
False-Face's gun cracked twice, and Knight, coming in low, slapped the gunhand out and away from his body.  
  
For an instant it looked absurd as Ted Knight and False-Face embraced, locked in combat. Knight's forehead was smeared with blood and sweat.  
  
Grant rolled onto his side, his breath finally starting to come back. He looked up as he tried to stand. The ceiling was awash with fire and tiny droplets of flame were showering down onto the carpet.  
  
He could see Hall, himself wounded, struggling with the shot bobby. It looked like something out of a war movie. Tompkins was getting McNider to his feet, helping him across the burning carpet.  
  
Grant stood to his full height. "Ted!" he shouted.  
  
He started across the room, jumping a burning line of carpet. The sofa was a bed of flames, the far wall by the bar an inferno. Ted Knight had False- Face against the bar, his right fist hammering into False-Face's body again and again.  
  
Both men fell, as a chunk of blazing ceiling came down around them.  
  
Grant searched frantically through the shimmering wall of flame for his friend and fellow JSA member, shouting his name over and over.  
  
And then he saw them. False-Face held a shiny brass fireplace poker aloft in his right hand. As Grant watched helpless to reach Knight in time, the poker hacked downward. Knight tried to block it, but the murderous blow screamed down his forearm and glanced off his temple. Knight fell back, his corded muscles suddenly lifeless and a white pallor spreading over his skin.  
  
Grant charged forward, jumping over the flames, feeling the heat as it seared his skin.  
  
False-Face raised the poker again to crash it down on Ted Knight's head as the senseless man lay in a twisted heap on the rug.  
  
Grant's left hand flicked out like the head of a striking rattlesnake, catching the poker in its deathly swing. A sharp stab of pain raced along his arm like an electric current. He twisted his body half-right, his left foot came up and he stabbed a short kick into False-Face's side, doubling False-Face forward. Grant was still on the move. He spun more than one- hundred and eighty degrees, away from False-Face and back, the edge of his right hand chopping against False-Face's carotid artery. But the force was insufficient, the reach too great to put the Nazi zealot down.  
  
As False-Face stumbled forward, he lurched toward Grant, stabbing the poker at him in a low thrust at death. Grant crossed his arms in a classic blocking position and the poker deflected wide of his groin. Grant turned away, dragging the poker and False-Face's body with him. His left foot kicked and sank into False-Face's abdomen.  
  
False-Face fell back, releasing the poker. His quick hands shot down the hem of the skirt, ripping at it, splitting the side seam. A razor-edged stiletto of gleaming steel caught the tint of red and orange from the flames as it flashed into his hand from inside his nylon-stockinged right thigh.  
  
Legs free of the tight skirt, False-Face's right leg kicked out. Grant leaped backward out of the way as the murderous master of disguise wheeled into a second kick, then another and another. Grant sidestepped and backstepped until he felt the searing heat of the flames at his back.  
  
False-Face's right foot flashed again, and Grant's hand shot out, catching the right ankle. Sidestepping left, Grant snapped his right foot twice into the criminal's groin. Grant then turned all the way left, twisting the leg, pulling False-Face down.  
  
As False-Face fall past him, Grant felt the tingle, then the sharp pain of the stiletto as the blade creased his right bicep.  
  
False-Face was down on the floor, but his left foot kicked up and Grant caught the blow full against his abdomen, reeling back with its force.  
  
The nasty killer was up again and coming, the knife held almost gracefully in his right hand as a fencer would hold a foil. His face was menacing, his lips pulled back into a vicious sneer. There was a flash of movement, and False-Face's body was firing toward him. Grant dodged right, feigned a wheeling movement left and hammered his fist into his opponent's stomach.  
  
False-Face reeled back from the force of the blow from the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, then had the presence of mind to whip the knife around in a sweeping arc of destruction to keep Grant at bay. Ted Grant wheeled 180-degrees right on his left foot, his right kicked against the knife hand, and the stiletto sailed out of False-Face's fist and into the flames.  
  
Grant finished the turn and unleashed the heel of his left hand against the murderer's chin. As False-Face spun away from the punch, Grant's right fist battered against False-Face's rib cage. The bodice of the black dress was wet and sticky.  
  
Ted Grant looked at his knuckles as he snapped back the right, they were red with blood. False-Face's blood.  
  
False-Face stumbled back against a small table, almost losing his balance. He cursed himself for knowing better than to probably try to go toe-to-toe with the likes of a former professional boxer. His face was contorted with pain and his right arm gripped his left side across the chest where Grant had sunk his fist into. False-Face was like a wounded animal as his eyes darted about the room. He thought only of survival and looked only for escape.  
  
Grant reached deep inside himself and summoned up the strength to strike the final blow. And then he heard it, an ominous creaking sound above the roar and hiss of the surrounding conflagration.  
  
He heard Hall's voice yell from beyond the flames, "Grant -- Ted! The bloody chandelier -- the whole ceiling!"  
  
Grant looked up. The ceiling was a sea of flames, smoke curled and billowed from it. An enormous crystal chandelier at its center shimmered and listed as it started to rip away from the burning ceiling.  
  
Ted Grant looked across the room. Beyond a low wall of flame, Ted Knight was moving but not getting up, not getting out of the way.  
  
Grant ran toward him, his left pantleg on fire.  
  
"Ted!" he rasped.  
  
In two quick steps he was behind the six-foot-two out of costume Starman. With nothing but pure adrenaline pumping through his battered muscles, he picked the big man up and tried to run. The roar of the bonfire around him was pierced only by a sickening tear from above.  
  
"The ceiling. My God, Ted!" screamed Sir Edward Hall from the doorway.  
  
Grant stumbled and fell toward the stairs leading down to the entrance hall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glittering chandelier. It was falling, as if in slow motion, dragging with it huge pieces of burning ceiling.  
  
On his knees, his injured friend cradled in his arms, Grant hunched over to shield Knight's face. Slowly, he edged forward getting to his feet. Chunks of burning debris crashed around him and sparks smoldered on the fabric of his jacket. The room was dense with thick gray smoke that seared his lungs. His eyes were stinging, and his face felt as if it was on fire.  
  
Finally, his feet found the stairs leading down and out of the apartment. As he groped his way forward he heard Hall's voice shouting, "Ted! There's a fire ladder by the stairwell!"  
  
He felt arms and hands around him, the burden of Ted Knight's weight lifted from him.  
  
He fell to his knees, coughing, his eyes streaming, but the smoke less dense. Tompkins and Hall were beside him.  
  
Slowly, Grant pushed himself up, coughing, his senses reeling. "False- Face!" He screamed the word back into the apartment, through the roaring wall of flames.  
  
Together, the survivors heard the shattering of glass from inside the apartment, and an instant later a bloodboiling tongue of flame danced and kicked its way through the apartment doorway.  
  
"He must have gone through a window!" said Tompkins.  
  
"False-Face!" Grant shouted. "I've got to know where the nerve gas is!" He made a last desperate attempt to rush the doorway.  
  
Grant felt the two Englishmen grab at him and drag him back from the doorway. He strained, staring into the furnace that had once been Doctor Charles McNider's flat, willing False-Face to stumble through the doorway. Finally, he let himself be taken, dropping forward, supporting himself against the two men.  
  
***  
  
False-Face looked like a bloodied and scorched rag as he hung from the lowest rung of the fire escape at the side of Dr Charles McNider's apartment building.  
  
His eyes winced as he tried to fight off the pain.  
  
Two bobbies raced through the alley beneath him, their footsteps echoing crisply in the winter darkness. They didn't look up. He knew some of his ribs were broken. He'd felt that kind of pain before. His hands were cut and swollen from his desperate fight with Ted Grant, and his legs were scorched and numb where the fire had fused the nylon stockings onto his skin.  
  
False-Face swung from the fire escape until the two policemen had safely rounded a corner. Then he let go. His knees buckled as he dropped the final twelve feet to the pavement.  
  
He pushed himself up and staggered against the alley wall of the building. He was cold, the back of his dress was ripped half away, the skirt torn up the side seam.  
  
He licked his lips.  
  
Johanna Gruber, his convenient identity as a flight attendant, was dead. He hadn't gotten the information he had come for. What was the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world doing breaking into Charles McNider's apartment? Were they friends? The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he had almost made a fatal mistake. He had underestimated Charles McNider and his sources. The crime writer knew many people. People who were dangerous to the health of False-Face.  
  
False-Face edged along the wall toward the street.  
  
The sounds coming from the direction of the roadway told him that firemen and policemen were everywhere. Somewhere out there was Ted Grant. Waiting for him. He winced from the pain that came from his ribs once again.  
  
He fell back against the wall, his breathing was heavy and labored, his left side sticky and cold. He could never escape dressed as he was.  
  
Out on the street he saw a single uniformed bobby standing in the glow of the headlights of a police car parked diagonally in the roadway about fifty feet away from the building.  
  
Shielded from the view by two large fire trucks that blocked the road at the bottom of the alley, False-Face stumbled toward the unsuspecting officer.  
  
He raised his voice, Johanna Gruber's voice one last time. "Help! Help me, officer. Hurry!" He fell forward and rolled onto his back, waiting.  
  
The young bobby rushed to his side and bent over him. As he raised his whistle to signal for aid, False-Face's left hand snapped up, his open palm ramming against the base of the bobby's nose. He saw shock register in the young man's eyes and felt the ethmoid bone splinter beneath his blow.  
  
The policeman died instantly, his brain punctured.  
  
False-Face was on his feet, dragging the young officer into the shadows like a lion with a fresh kill.  
  
He whipped Johanna Gruber's wig from his head and stripped away the remains of her clothes. Within a minute, he was ready to face the world again, a member of the London constabulary.  
  
He allowed a smile to cross his lips, despite the pain in his side.  
  
***  
  
Ted Grant sat on the curb across the street from the burning apartment building and watched his friend and teammate.  
  
Ted Knight had been lucky. He was going to need some proper care, but he was going to be all right.  
  
A bobby ran up to Sir Edward Hall. Hall was on an ambulance gurney, his leg bandaged, but still in command. "Sir," the man reported, "the building is evacuated. Everyone is accounted for except the False-Face chap the American gentleman mentioned."  
  
"He's alive, officer. Don't worry about False-Face," Grant rasped.  
  
Sir Edward turned to look at Grant. "You mentioned something back there about nerve gas. Stolen nerve gas?"  
  
Grant shrugged his shoulders. "All that smoke was getting to me," he replied.  
  
"Why would a former boxer who trains policemen in defensive tactics know anything about stolen nerve gas? And how would you come to know about a wanted fugitive such as False-Face?" Hall was sitting up, his face registering pain.  
  
Grant started to speak, but Dr Charles McNider's voice cut him off. Grant looked up. McNider, wrapped in a blanket, looked as though he was shivering. His voice low, he said, "I'd intended to give you at least a partial briefing. Apparently it'll have to be now."  
  
"Briefing?" Hall looked up at McNider.  
  
Grant looked at McNider's eyes. He could tell that without the special dark glasses, he was truly blind. "Yes," he said, "but before that, you must contact MI6 to see if the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tipped anything to the British secret service."  
  
"Secret Intelligence Service?" quizzed Hall. "What the devil would SIS have to do with all this?" He waved his arm toward the still-burning apartment house.  
  
Grant crouched down beside Hall's gurney. "Sir Edward," he whispered. "A few months ago, there were one hundred canisters of VX nerve gas being taken to a military base in New Mexico. False-Face and his gang of neo- Nazi's intercepted the shipment and stole them all. Charles, Ted here --" he gestured toward his friend, now standing behind him "-- and I are quietly investigating their disappearance. We understand that a group of so- called mystery men were able to stop False-Face from using some of the nerve gas in Gateway City."  
  
"Good God, man," said an incredulous Hall.  
  
Grant grinned. "But don't tell anybody until you get clearance," he cautioned.  
  
"Mystery men?" Hall asked. "Do you mean like that chap dressed in a cat suit who resolved the hostage crisis at Marchand's some months back?"  
  
Ted Grant smiled and nodded. He then looked up at McNider, who was standing beside him. He wondered how the out of costume Dr Mid-Nite must feel after having been taken in so completely by False-Face.  
  
Grant started to say something, when he heard the shrillness of police whistles coming down the street to his right, near the alley that ran alongside the burning apartment building.  
  
Suddenly he was up, and started to run.  
  
Ahead, he could see Tompkins, and around him a knot of uniformed officers. Grant broke through and stood beside Tompkins.  
  
Lying in the alley, an ambulance attendant beside him, was a young man. That he was dead was obvious. The body, oddly pink against the blackness of the alley, was stripped naked. Not far away, hanging from a trash can, was a bloodstained woman's slip, a torn dress and an auburn wig.  
  
Grant felt a motion beside him and turned. It was Hall, two bobbies supporting him on his injured leg.  
  
Hall whispered, "My God, False-Face has escaped -- as one of us."  
  
Tompkins spoke. "I've ordered the entire area sealed off."  
  
Grant turned a grim smile on the law enforcement specialist of the Home Office. "What the hell good does that do?" he demanded as anger swelled up inside him. "If you've got cops cordoning off the area, it's better than even money False-Face is one of them. He's probably killed someone else by now and taken a fresh set of clothes. He could be anybody. He's so good he could be one of us," he cried.  
  
Ted Grant wanted to strike out at somebody. Hard.  
  
To be continued ... 


	3. Chapter 3

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
  
  
***  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES TO CHAPTER 3: Before beginning the third chapter, I'd like to point out a few things to my Elseworld's tale. First, Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred initially had no last name when he was first introduced. He was given the surname "Beagle" in Detective Comics #96 in February 1945. Although the name of his Earth- One counterpart was later said to be Pennyworth, the Earth-Two Alfred (the one in this story), as established in Superman Family #211 in October 1981, was Alfred Beagle. So, I decided to stick with the Beagle name in my universe story.  
  
Next, I am very aware that in the accepted DC Earth-Two universe, Bruce Wayne went on to marry Selina Kyle (Catwoman) and they eventually had a child named Helena, who became the Huntress.  
  
While I don't dismiss this continuity outright, I wanted, in my writings, to explore a relationship between Bruce Wayne and Kathy Kane. Selina Kyle will play a very important part in this story and in Bruce Wayne's life. Stay tuned.  
  
***  
  
Chapter 3  
  
The Gotham City International Airport was crowded, but Bruce Wayne, as he moved away from customs with his suitcase and attache case in his hands, wasn't worried that he'd miss his driver. A moment later he saw him, standing dignified among the tourists and business travelers.  
  
Bruce knew that Alfred Beagle saw him. But Alfred remained motionless. He was, as usual, imppecably dressed in a black suit.  
  
Bruce Wayne threaded his way through the crowd and stopped three feet in front of Alfred. The butler/chauffer greeted him with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Master Bruce."  
  
"I might well say the same, Alfred."  
  
"Mrs Wayne has sent me to collect you, sir." The voice was very British sounding.  
  
Alfred reached out with his left hand and took the suitcase from his long- time employer, and Bruce released it to him.  
  
"I have the car waiting for us, sir. I suggest we get on." Alfred turned and started through the crowd, as if oblivious to it, cutting a wedge through the traffic. Bruce followed closely in the butler's wake.  
  
"I hope everything has been alright since I've been out of town," Bruce asked once they got into the Rolls Royce.  
  
"Most assuredly, sir," Alfred answered as he pressed the power-window button and Bruce's back-seat window on the passenger side went down three inches.  
  
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he turned a reproving glance on the back of Alfred's head. But he said nothing and looked away.  
  
Bruce Wayne studied where Alfred was heading with the automobile for a moment.  
  
"How is she?" Bruce asked after a while.  
  
There was no need to say her name. Both men knew who they were talking about. Kathy Kane Wayne, a slinky, sexy, female crimefighter who had smuggled her way into Bruce Wayne's life as Batwoman. It seemed to Bruce that with his duties as both a millionaire industralist and as Batman, they were apart more often than they were together. But when they were together, they were never very far apart.  
  
It was a long moment before Alfred spoke. "Mrs Wayne is well, Master Bruce," he finally said. "If anything, her beauty has increased since you last saw her."  
  
Bruce looked back at Alfred. He smiled as he watched his confidant thread the Rolls Royce through a knot of traffic and into the clear again.  
  
"Anything happen in Gotham while I was gone?" Bruce asked.  
  
"While reading some police reports that came in through your usual sources," replied Alfred calmly, "I noticed that someone had attempted to kill Catwoman."  
  
"Kill Selina?" Bruce asked surprised. "Why would anyone want to do that?"  
  
Alfred exhaled long and hard. "From what I understand, there have been two attempts on her life recently," he said. "One can surmise that the first was merely a hazard of her trade. A disgruntled low bidder apparently sent a talentless assassin to compensate Catwoman for not selling him a gem he wished to acquire. The second, however, is uncertain, but appears to had come from a European nation. The first man reportedly was killed falling from the roof of a building. The second man confronted Catwoman and was dispatched rather quickly with two broken legs."  
  
Bruce stared out the window and listened to the slipstream whistle behind them.  
  
Finally he asked, "I wonder why she doesn't get out of the jewel theft trade? She's probably made enough money to live like a princess for the rest of her life."  
  
"Catwoman," Alfred began in his sometimes sarcastic voice to Bruce, and said, "has not confided this reason to me, and it is, of course, not my position to inquire of her."  
  
It was the end of the conversation, like a bell dinging, Bruce thought. His mind, for some reason, drifted to the events in London a week ago. He had read a JSA report from Wildcat about what had happened. Starman had mended well, but the doctors had warned him to take it easy for a while. Sir Edward Hall, a top flight policeman that Bruce Wayne knew through his connections with Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, was on crutches, but he too would recover. Dr Charles McNider's pride hurt more than any of his wounds, and he went around blaming himself for the whole debacle until Bruce called him and told him that False-Face could fool anyone with his disguises -- including Batman.  
  
Then he thought of False-Face and his lips tightened. False-Face was a scum, a megalomaniac bent on one course. He would either crush the innocent people of the world under his jackbooted heel, or he would tear them apart in the process. But not if Batman and the Justice Society of America had anything to say about it.  
  
***  
  
Kathy Wayne stood motionless in front of her dressing-room mirror. Her rich black hair tumbled down to her bare shoulders. She admired her body. She was proud of it, proud of the things it could do.  
  
She picked up a pair of gray linen slacks from the chair beside the mirror and began to slip them on. Her legs were long and well-shaped, the thighs firm and the skin taut over her sinewy muscles. Her calves tapered down to slim ankles.  
  
She pulled the waistband over her narrow hips, the pants hugging her behind and snuggling into her crotch. Her stomach was smooth and firm beneath her hands as she buttoned the pants. She worked hard at staying in peak condition as Batwoman.  
  
Next came a pink wool sweater with a V-neck and dolman sleeves. For some reason, she always felt freer and easier in its bulky, loose-fitting form. As she raised her arms to pull it on, she caught the profile of her breasts in the mirror. They were full and firm, the pure white skin extending to large pink nipples.  
  
She slipped the sweater over her head and felt the fine wool brush tantalizingly against her skin. She tossed her head and shook her shiny hair free of the neckline.  
  
Around her long slender neck, she wore a finely sculpted platninum necklace. Just a hint of makeup highlighted her features. Her high cheekbones, the ones that could have made her a million-dollar-a-year fashion model, had she not only been rich in her own right before she even met Bruce Wayne, showed just a slight blush of pink. Her lips were full and red and inviting. Her light-blue eyes were bright but distant, as if she were suddenly focusing on the next few hours.  
  
Her tongue played on her lips.  
  
"Bruce," she whispered to her own reflection. A sparkle flashed in her eyes when she said his name.  
  
***  
  
They had driven along the side of the Gotham River on a road that extended toward Wayne Manor, in the northern suburbs of Gotham City. Once out of heavier traffic, Alfred maintained the Rolls Royce at just below fifty miles per hour. The watch on Bruce's left wrist indicated that nearly half an hour had elapsed.  
  
The road had taken them through a mixture of wooded areas and stately homes of the rich.  
  
He didn't look at Alfred as he asked him, "How much longer, do you suppose?"  
  
"Another five minutes, Master Bruce," replied Alfred.  
  
Alfred's British accent seemed a bit stronger now. "It is not my position, of course, but as regards to Catwoman ..." Alfred shifted his gaze from the road to the rearview mirror and Bruce Wayne as he spoke, Bruce watching him.  
  
"Do I intend to look into the attempts on her life?" Bruce asked.  
  
"Perhaps not in those exact words, but the spirit is there, yes," Alfred said.  
  
"It depends on whether or not she cooperates or wishes the help of Batman, doesn't it?" Bruce knew it was a little silly, but he didn't want to give Alfred the satisfaction of a straight answer. He knew the past history between The Batman and Catwoman.  
  
A huge mansion came into view. It had been nearly a week since he had seen Kathy.  
  
He stepped out of the Rolls Royce onto the driveway and took it all in, the security fences, the landscaping designed for privacy. He had just turned his attention to the front of the house itself when one of a pair of dark double doors swung open. A figure stood in the doorway, stealing the brillance away from the setting sun.  
  
Kathy Wayne.  
  
Bruce started to walk toward her. She stood just inside the doorway for an instant longer, then started through, across the shallow granite of the wide top step.  
  
He stopped, still several yards from the steps, staring at this fascinatingly beautiful creature who stood at the base of the steps, her hands hugging her shoulders with her arms crossed over her chest.  
  
Bruce realized he had been holding his breath. As he exhaled, he saw steam rise from his lips.  
  
"Kathy," he called out.  
  
"Bruce," she responded, "come put your arms around me before I take a chill. Please."  
  
Bruce walked up to her.  
  
Her hair shone, rich, dark and full. Her eyes as blue as the winter sky, held him like a vise.  
  
He drew her close to him. She was doing it, what she always could do.  
  
Bruce kissed her hard, tasting her mouth, wanting to devour her.  
  
Kathy responded.  
  
***  
  
One of the two Americans, the one called Jack Knight, had a concussion and had been in a hospital for observation, False-Face had learned through his sources in London's right-wing underground. False-Face wished he had killed him. The other one, the ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Ted Grant, had flown back to New York City, to his gym in the "Big Apple." His dossier on Grant revealed that he was a friend of Dr Charles McNider. Were the two of them -- and who else -- working together to find him? Was there any connection between them and those mystery men who foiled his plan in Gateway City a few months ago? False-Face wasn't sure.  
  
Dr Charles McNider was a world renown crime writer and had very high- ranking sources in law enforcement circles throughout the world. Was he employing Ted Grant to be his bodyguard or something? That was logical. And what of this Ted Knight? False-Face's sources believed Knight to be a millionaire who liked to dabble in astronomy.  
  
His back turned against a seventh-century fresco of the Virgin and John beneath the cross, False-Face rested his bearded chin in his left hand as he "meditated" in the small chamber at the side of the Greek Orthodox church.  
  
He studied the wristwatch he had pinned under the flowing black cossack he wore. It was time to go.  
  
He stood slowly to befit his years, adjusting the set of his flat crowned miter.  
  
He hunched forward slightly as he walked with the support of a walking stick. He nodded and raised his right hand in blessing as he passed out of the door amid a throng of women. They were professional mourners. One day he would provide the stupid women with something they could really mourn over.  
  
False-Face moved ahead into the narrow cobbled street, turned to his right and walked down the slight hill.  
  
He thread his way along the maze of noisy streets for ten minutes and soon he could see the night blackness of the Sea of Crete stretched below him like a sinister abyss. The sleazy cafes acted as a buffer between the blackness of the water and the dingy grayness of the nighttime Rethimnone itself.  
  
False-Face skirted the open front of the nearest of the cafes, returning the smiles and good wishes of the revelers as they noticed him, the old priest. The clinking of glasses and the high-pitched forced laughter of young girls who sat with dark-faced, mustachioed young men fought for precedence over the blaring Western rock music. He thought that the song he was hearing was from some new English group called The Beatles or something.  
  
There were several boats on the small harbor, but one in particular caught his eye. On it stood a woman.  
  
The Blond-haired, deeply tanned beauty was clothed in a red top and a skirt of brightly printed material wrapped around her waist and trailing unevenly to midcalf. She ran her hands through her hair as he walked past the deck on which she stood, looking down on him.  
  
She reached down suddenly, the red scarf in her left hand matching the red of the top that held her breasts. In an instant, the scarf covered her hair and she was moving away from him, toward the stern of the ship with its single main mast. The ship was a brilliant white, and looked freshly painted.  
  
False-Face kept walking, past more of the seemingly endless cafes to his right, and fishing boats to his left. The Sea of Crete stretched beyond the darkness.  
  
He could feel someone behind him as he turned into the streets again, and he stopped in the first doorway sufficiently dark to offer good cover. He hitched up the hem of his cassock and reached up beneath his pantleg. A large blackhandled knife, tightly curled in his fingers, slid into view.  
  
She called herself Blaze Fields these days, but when he had first known her in Germany it had been Blaze Fahey. Like himself, she was a Nazi. But he trusted no one; it was implicit in his every thought. And so he waited in the sticky, hot darkness, holding his breath as she walked past.  
  
"Blaze," he whispered hoarsely.  
  
She turned abruptly on her right heel. She wore red sandals that were laced around her calves with red leather thongs.  
  
"It is you!" she exclaimed toward the darkness.  
  
"Come here," he called.  
  
She stepped into the doorway. He smelled her perfume.  
  
"False-Face ... all of this," and she gestured to his outfit. "I feared that you ..."  
  
It was worth the risk. He drew her toward him, still holding the knife, his mouth crushing down against hers. He felt the moisture of her lips, smelled her breath. The taste of her could be addictive, he remembered. Her body pushed against him. He could feel the firmness of her breasts through the thin top and the heat of her loins as her body molded to his.  
  
"F.F.," she sighed.  
  
"Is it the boat that we take?" he asked after a moment.  
  
"Too slow, I think. My car is nearby," she replied.  
  
"Tell me where and I will follow after you at a distance," False-Face instructed her.  
  
"The third intersection up the hill, then walk to your right, F.F.," she said. "The car is an old green Fiat with a taillight missing -- the left or the right one, I don't really remember."  
  
"If there is anyone around, I will walk along the street and you can intercept me when it is safe. Now, quickly, go ahead," he urged her.  
  
Her green eyes stared up into his, and he bent over her and kissed her hard, kissed her fast.  
  
She whispered, "I'll be glad when you take off your disguise. The beard." She laughed. "It tickles me, you know?"  
  
She walked away, and False-Face watched as she navigated the cobbled street in her ridiculous sandals with their spike-thin high heels.  
  
He palmed the knife up his sleeve rather than sheath it on his leg under the cassock.  
  
He waited for several minutes, until she was well ahead of him. Then he stepped out of the doorway. A young woman was staring at him. His Greek excellent, his accent perfect, he began, "Are you alone?"  
  
"Yes," she answered, nodding.  
  
He looked up and down the street. She was indeed alone.  
  
"Come here," he said with a smile, gesturing toward the doorway.  
  
She looked at him, her eyes wide in the moonlight. She nodded as she stepped past him. Looking puzzled, she asked, "Are you all right?" He nodded.  
  
"Everything is okay?" she insisted.  
  
"Yes, everything is all right," he said and rammed the spear-pointed blade of his knife into her throat, ripping down to severe the carotid artery.  
  
He let the body slump away from him against the doorway wall, as her heart still pumped and the wounds sprayed blood.  
  
False-Face turned out of the doorway, the knife blade wiped clean across the dead woman's white blouse. He walked up the hill, following Blaze Fields.  
  
***  
  
There had been a drive of more than an hour along a barren and winding road paralleling the coastline, and the descent to the water itself had been perilous in darkness. Blaze had removed her sandals and gone barefoot.  
  
He hitched up the hem of the cassock as he waded barefoot too and his pantlegs rolled up, into the surf toward a darkly colored two-seater rowboat. The blackhaired man who sat in the rear by the oarlocks fought the waves. False-Face assumed he was the pilot of the plane that waited a hundred yards beyond the surf.  
  
False-Face looked at the frail craft. "This will carry us?" he asked Blaze.  
  
"Yes, F.F.," came her reply.  
  
He settled into the front seat, facing Blaze and the man he presumed to be the pilot.  
  
"Herr False-Face." The man nodded as he extended his right hand. False-Face took it briefly. "I am honored, sir, just to meet you," continued the man. "I am Yannis Lemoronos, and I am at your service, sir."  
  
"What kind of boat is this?" demanded False-Face.  
  
"The Americans make it," Lemoronos reported. "They call it a Porta-Bote. When we reach the seaplane, I will unlock the oars, remove the seats and the boat folds to the size of a large surfboard. There is provision to secure it beneath the fuselage of my aircraft, Herr False-Face. It is a very useful boat for a pilot like me." He smiled.  
  
False-Face clamped his hands to the gunwales. He hated boats of any kind, and one that folded made him all the more nervous.  
  
The flight took less than a half hour, the time to fold out the Porta-Bote and refit the seats less than two minutes, Blaze helping Yannis. False-Face was again at the prow as the boat was rowed to the shore of an island, small enough to be rarely visited, rarely noticed on maps of the fringe area of the Cyclades.  
  
He stepped firmly from the rowboat and into the surf, and from the black rocks beyond the narrow white beach, men appeared.  
  
False-Face walked toward them, noting they were armed with machine guns and rifles.  
  
He stopped, just beyond the furtherest lapping of the surf, feeling Blaze beside him.  
  
He addressed the men who stood staring at him, their weapons held diagonally across their chests. "I am False-Face. Soon, I will be in the halls of power, and only I shall wield the power. The mighty ones of all nations will yield to me because of this. And I shall lead the world into a new era of glory, the glory that was robbed from us during the atrocity of 1944. But I shall counter atrocity with atrocity. Of the ninety-nine remaining canisters of VX nerve gas, seventy-four are still within the continental United States and under the direction of The Boomer, a master explosives expert. Some of those will be transported to strategic locations in Mexico and Canada, as well. Of the twenty-five canisters in Europe, twenty-four will be planted throughout the NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. The twenty-fifth I myself shall see to. It will be an object lesson that the world shall never forget. The same effect I had orignally planned for Gateway City, but this time even more glorious, more spectacular. And I shall see to it personally. Blaze will guide you in your individual and collective tasks. Under my direction, individual task outlines will soon be prepared. These you will memorize and then destroy in my presence."  
  
He reached out, holding Blaze's right hand in his left, then raised their hands high.  
  
False-Face watched as the men of the night bowed their heads. He could hear nothing but the lapping of the surf at his feet.  
  
To be continued ... 


	4. Chapter 4

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
It was cold enough that the children could skate again, and Wesley Dodds stared at them through his frosted window. He smudged at the frost on one of the panes of glass with the heel of his right fist. Now he could see more clearly, but the view was still distorted.  
  
He turned away and walked the few paces to his desk. He sat down and looked at the sheafs of reports, picked up one, then threw it down. He stood again and began to pace the room.  
  
Wesley Dodds walked back to the window. He looked out across the street far to his left. He thought of his own childhood on a dingy street near the Hudson River as it threaded between Manhattan and New Jersey. "A long time ago," he said to himself.  
  
Dodds stared back at his desk. "Damn," he whispered.  
  
He walked back across his small den and sat down.  
  
Reports. He much preferred reading technical data in German, it was more precise. The reports came from Charles McNider, who in turn, obtained them from his numerous law enforcement and JSA sources. They told him that False- Face had once again escaped from the clutches of the law -- or namely -- Wildcat. He thought back to the events he had witnessed in Gateway City and shuddered at what might had been if False-Face's plan had succeeded. Newspaper reports of the incident hinted of some type of a group that was still somewhat of enigma. They were talking about the mystery men and women of the JSA.  
  
His telephone rang and he picked it up. "Dodds," he said.  
  
The caller was Jay Garrick. "Jay, how have you been?" Dodds asked pleasantly.  
  
He listened for a moment and then asked, "You'll be here in a 'flash,' then? Okay." He hung the phone up.  
  
He pulled out a small picture-framed mirror from a desk drawer. He needed a shave, his five-o-clock shadow was at its worst for him. He smoothed back his sandy-brown hair, then straightened the brown woolen tie he had once bought in London. He found his Tweed sportscoat and shrugged into it as he started from the office.  
  
He walked to his front door and merely opened it. Within seconds a wind blew through the doorway and inside the foyer stood a human-sized replica of Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. Actually, it was just the fastest man alive -- The Flash.  
  
Dodds inhaled, then exhaled hard. Witnessing such power close up could take a person's breath away, even if you were supposed to be used to it.  
  
"Hi, Wes, sorry it took me so long. I took a little detour through Ohio," The Flash said with a smile.  
  
"Not a problem, old friend. It gave me time to smooth back my hair for you."  
  
The Flash smiled again. "Well, has it been a good evening for you, Wes?"  
  
"It may look like a good evening, Jay, but it's not, I'm afraid."  
  
"You been studying the affair that happened in London?" Flash continued.  
  
"Yes," Dodds said automatically.  
  
"You still think this False-Face character will try to release the contents of another one of those nerve gas canisters?"  
  
"Yes," replied Dodds.  
  
"Bruce sent me here to inquire if you might be willing to do something," The Flash informed him. He looked down for a moment, then looked up. "Bruce wanted to know if you might be interested in tackling the investigation from another -- seperate -- angle in order to verify information."  
  
"In other words," Wesley Dodds started, "the so-called World's Greatest Detective doesn't want any competition in regards to tracking down that maniac from his rogue's gallery."  
  
"Wes, he didn't say that. He really does respect your detective skills and thought it was best that the two of you were not ... tripping over each other's capes, so to speak."  
  
"I would had figured he say that."  
  
"Bruce just thinks if someone else were working seperately on the case, we would have less chance of missing something."  
  
"Most detectives would say that would not be the best way to approach our search for this madman."  
  
"We're not exactly the police, Wes."  
  
Dodds realized his palms were sweating. He knew that Batman was probably right. If Bruce said turn left, Wes would probably insist they turn right. Then a big discussion would have to take place to resolve the differances of opinion. The Sandman probably worked better by himself, anyway. Still the intent of sending The Flash over here to inform him of this idea disgusted him. Bruce should had done his own "dirty work." There were some things, he privately believed, that The Sandman could do.  
  
"Okay," Dodds said. "Will you be free to give me a hand, Jay?"  
  
Garrick's face turned to a frown. "I wish I could, Wes, but The Fiddler is on the loose back in Keystone City and I really have to apprehend him first before I can help the JSA on this."  
  
Dodds just nodded in understanding.  
  
"I wish you good luck, my friend," The Flash said to him as he went to open the door.  
  
"Good luck to you, Flash. Thanks for stopping by."  
  
Wesley Dodds averted his eyes and some papers that were sitting on the end of a nearby table flew off and littered the floor after The Fastest Man Alive zoomed out of the room.  
  
Dodds murmured, "Yes, Batman, you go your way and I'll go mine -- and we should end up somewhere in the middle."  
  
He returned back to the desk in his den. Dodds knew that he would have to wade through the paperwork, then he would have to make contact to talk to some people who may know something more about this False-Face. He realized he better make sure his weapons and equipment were in order before The Sandman set out into the night.  
  
He knew the drill very well. He listened to his heels click on the hard floor as he walked out of his den and headed for his Sandcastle.  
  
***  
  
A Japanese screen made of eight yellowed segments covered the center section of the far wall. Batman quietly entered through a side window of the 18th floor apartment on Gotham City's East Side.  
  
He was trying to outsmart the best cat burglar in the business -- Catwoman.  
  
It felt good to be back in his Bat costume and patrolling the rooftops of His city. His mind drifted to the report of the deadly combat that took place at Charles McNider's flat in London. But as he anticipated his surprising Selina Kyle in her apartment, he hoped that the results would be far different than what happened in London.  
  
Selina was a fireball in her own right.  
  
As the Caped Crusader moved stealthily through the large, very expensive apartment, he found Selina Kyle seemingly waiting for him in her library. She stood beside a small mahogany bar at the end of the green-carpeted room.  
  
She turned to face him, and it was calculated, he knew to give him the full impact.  
  
"Ohh, dear me! There is an intruder in my home. What will I ever do?" she said with false fear in her voice and a smile on her face.  
  
She was wearing a cute black dress.  
  
The Masked Manhunter tried to remain stoic. "You were expecting me?"  
  
"Of course. You always have questions. I ... may ... have answers. Depends on how you ask them."  
  
She was playing her favorite game with him -- cat and mouse. He always hated to be the mouse.  
  
A diamond bracelet glittered at her wrist. Small diamond earrings pierced her ears, and thin necklace of diamonds guarded her throat.  
  
Her dark hair was swept up at the nape.  
  
"What can I say?" he asked.  
  
"That I'm beautiful?" she teased.  
  
He felt best not to reply.  
  
She walked to the tall, dark figure in her room, took his left arm, hooking both her hands in the bend of his elbow and walked him toward the small bar.  
  
"Where are the usual sidekicks? Boy Blunder and ... that tramp who has eyes for you?"  
  
He felt himself flush underneath the cowl. He didn't answer her question but said in reply, "I'll ask the questions, here." He was trying to maintain control of the situation -- not an easy task with the likes of Catwoman and her many charms.  
  
She laughed at his obvious discomfort.  
  
"What's wrong, Batman? Cat got your tongue?" She laughed at her own joke.  
  
Selina led him to a leather-covered barstool.  
  
He decided to stand.  
  
"What would you like to drink, my broody opponent?"  
  
"To drink?" he asked in return.  
  
"Yes. For now at least, what would you like to drink?"  
  
"I'm fine, Catwoman."  
  
She looked him up and down in his skintight costume. "I already know that, handsome." Her tongue rolled over her lips.  
  
He felt himself flush again.  
  
"I'm trying to be serious, Selina."  
  
"That's your problem, isn't it?" she said teasingly.  
  
"Crimefighting is a serious business, Catwoman."  
  
"You know what they say, don't you, Batman? All work and no play ... make a very boring Batman."  
  
"I'm not here to amuse you, Selina."  
  
"You came to arrest me, then?"  
  
"No."  
  
Her voice became serious. "Then why are you here?"  
  
"I heard there have been two attempts on your life recently."  
  
She smiled at him and turned away.  
  
"Nothing for you to be concerned about, Batman. The problems were taken care of."  
  
"I want to help."  
  
She laughed. "Or maybe you are here for my help, hmmm?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean," he lied.  
  
She laughed again.  
  
"You're too much of a goody-two-shoes to be much of a liar, Batman. I could always read you like a book. The question has always been if you would let me turn the pages."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I can't tell you."  
  
"Oh, of course. You are a man of ... mystery." She put emphasis on the last word.  
  
The last sentence set off alarm bells in his head. It sounded to him like she knew something.  
  
Selina started to walk out of the room. The Caped Crusader followed her into her massive living room.  
  
Batman looked overhead to a chandelier, small but impressively obvious as crystal.  
  
"I know it's terribly rude," he began, "but isn't all this, well ..."  
  
"Expensive?" she said for him.  
  
"Yes," said Batman.  
  
"Yes, it is," said Selina, holding her chin high. "But I enjoy it."  
  
"Is that why you stay in the jewel theft business," Batman wanted to know, "to support your tastes?"  
  
"Not really," Catwoman conceded. "I could live like this for five lifetimes if I were to quit today. But then, who would get to tease you so deliciously." She smiled wickedly at him. "Since we now seem to be talking business, I bet you're here to see if I could possibly help with these allegedly missing nerve gas canisters."  
  
She was trying to shock him. She knew about the nerve gas. What else did she know?  
  
"What nerve gas canisters?" he countered.  
  
Oh, come on, Batman! Who do you think you're dealing with, here? The Riddler?" She laughed at her own joke again. "Yes, VX nerve gas canisters. Ninety-nine of them, now. VX nerve gas is several times more toxic than sarin but less volatile. It can kill a man within minutes if inhaled or deposited on the skin. Protection from VX would require both protective suits and masks. The compound was first prepared in the 1950s during research for new insecticides. Its chemical formula is classified by the U.S. government as secret. Does that encompass the spirit of the thing, Batman?" She wasn't showing off. She was deadly serious.  
  
"Yes," he answered, "yes it does."  
  
The masked crimefighter watched her.  
  
After a pause, Catwoman said, "I'll help you find these nerve gas canisters. Truce until then. Truce off after we find them."  
  
"I've got to get them and return them to the United States government," Batman intoned.  
  
"I know that, but I could make an incredible fortune if I stole them from you and sold them to some foreign governments," she said with a sly grin.  
  
"Then where will you live -- I mean after the world is uninhabitable?" Batman asked.  
  
"I don't know," she said while trying to look into his eyes. "But I'm sure you could always find me. And my bed will always be your bed."  
  
Gotham City's guardian didn't know what to say.  
  
***  
  
"That is St Anton's principal claim to fame, Mein Herr," the driver said in broken but understandable English.  
  
Colonel Sam Flagg answered, "That's very nice," and followed the driver's pointing arm to a steep, snowcovered mountain.  
  
The Audi kept moving along the plowed road, heavy snow piled in steep banks on either side of the route from Innsbruck. "Yeah," said the driver with evident pride, as if he himself had built the mountain, "that is the Kandahar. Some say it is the greatest of the downhill runs becaue it has everything."  
  
"That a fact?" Colonel Flagg said, not interested in mountains. "How far is St Anton, then?"  
  
"Only a few more minutes, Mein Herr."  
  
Flagg grunted, and looked at his two companions. Intelligence Officer David Palms sat next to him. Intelligence Officer Ed Benson sat in the front seat beside the driver. Flagg looked out the window, seeing the snow but not seeing it. Flagg had been given a special presidential directive to pursue a man who lived outside St Anton. Ultimately, Flagg was after False-Face, a fiendish criminal. Recently he learned through contacts in the CIA that to find False-Face he needed to contact the man who was the living connection of all right-wing groups, one Abdul al-Kafir.  
  
"What is it that you gentlemen do?" the driver asked.  
  
"We're bible salesmen," Colonel Flagg answered. He couldn't very well say he was in the CIA, that he had been given carte blanche as to conduct the important investigation, and that in the bottom of his suitcase were concealed weapons. And it wasn't really his suitcase at all, it had been left in an airport locker for him with some other items.  
  
This cloak-and-dagger stuff was something he had loved since his days in the Korean war. Well, if the President of the United States orders you to go out and save the world -- then save the world is what Colonel Flagg would do.  
  
***  
  
Batman sat on the edge of the double bed in Selina Kyle's hotel room. Catwoman sat beside him. Off to one side, Wildcat straddled a ladder-back chair. All three were watching Hourman as he looked at his watch -- something he did on a constant basis. They were in St Anton, Austria.  
  
Hourman looked at Catwoman. She had crossed her legs, allowing Hourman an excellent eyeful of her shapely legs.  
  
"Are you sure we can trust this young lady's information, Batman?"  
  
"Oh, you can trust me, stud," Catwoman answered before the Caped Crusader could.  
  
Wildcat chuckled. "Are you sure you want to try and pull this tiger's tail, Hourman?"  
  
This time it was Catwoman's turn to snicker.  
  
Hourman decided it was time to sit down and be quiet.  
  
"I think," Wildcat started, "what Hourman was attempting to inquire from you, Catwoman ... are you fairly certain that your information is good enough to bring us all the way to Austria? We hope this isn't a wild goose chase."  
  
"One cat to another, babe?" she asked.  
  
Wildcat nodded.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I don't think I'm gonna like this," Hourman voluteered.  
  
"Really?" Catwoman asked, looking over to him. "What a pity."  
  
Looking to his fellow male crimefighters, Batman said, "Okay, the three of us will ..."  
  
Catwoman interrupted him. "The four of us. I'm coming along to Abdul al- Kafir's with all of you," she said matter-of-factly.  
  
"No way," Batman snapped.  
  
"I'll second that," Hourman added.  
  
Wildcat said evenly, "I, too, would discourage you, Catwoman. It'll be too dangerous for a woman."  
  
Batman looked at Catwoman, but before he could say anything, she spoke.  
  
"If you want my help in getting to see al-Kafir, I'm coming along." She smiled.  
  
"If he's someone you can point out to us, we can handle it," Batman said. "Didn't you say he was armed and dangerous?"  
  
"I admit that he and I were never close. Al-Kafir's perversions disgusted me."  
  
Batman looked down at his gauntlets, then to Hourman. "His perversions?" he asked.  
  
Batman felt Catwoman's breath against his right cheek as she leaned to him, whispering. After a moment, he drew back and stared at her. "He does that?" he almost yelled, barely in control. "The vile criminal."  
  
***  
  
Unknown to the four costumed figures in Selina Kyle's room, another man was calling at the desk in the same hotel. "I'm Wesley Dodds, room 304. I believe the desk rang that the package I was expecting had arrived?"  
  
The hotel desk clerk smiled, turned away and took a small package from the shelf beneath the board of room keys. He appeared to study the address for an instant, then passed it over the desk.  
  
"Thank you," Dodds said. Though he could speak German fluently, he was supposed to be a Swedish health-food salesman and unable to speak the language.  
  
"And thank you, Mein Herr," the clerk nodded deferentially.  
  
Dodds weighed the package in his hands -- it had to be the right article.  
  
He walked across the foyer and down the hall toward a men's room he had seen, and pushed through the door with the package under his arm. Inside, he extracted a small pine wedge from his jacket pocket and blocked the door closed with it. He sincerely hoped no one picked that instant for a case of diarrhea. He set the package on the steel shelf that ran under the mirror above the sinks. He ripped through the box because the adhesive tape was too resistant.  
  
Inside the box was another box, this one wooden, closed with a tiny locked brass latch. Dodds took his key ring from his pocket and produced a tiny brass key. He unlocked the box.  
  
Before him lay his new gas gun. Several viles of various anesthetics and sedatives accompanied the gun.  
  
He took one tube that contained an orangish liquid and pressed the blue rubber cap into the needle inside the gun and checked to make sure the safety was on. He dropped the extra viles into his jacket pocket. It wasn't the safest place, but it would have to do for the moment.  
  
Dodds stuffed the empty cardboard box into a trash basket and stuck the new gun, that resembled a semiautomatic pistol, under his jacket in the elastic waistband of his slacks. The gun would be in a more secure place in his Sandman costume.  
  
He washed his hands, studying his face in the mirror. He needed more sleep but those dreams of his were bothering him again. Nightmares was a better word. Nightmares of a holocaust and False-Face, wearing a Hitler mustache, laughing.  
  
Dodds pocketed his wedge and left the men's room. He started back toward the lobby. By now, his rented car should be waiting. He needed to get his gear and put it in the trunk of the automobile.  
  
As he passed the desk, he noticed the desk clerk watching him, then remembered he had the wooden box under his arm. Dodds smiled, again affecting his phony Swedish accent, and called out to the clerk as he walked past to the exit, "An old girlfriend knew I'd be staying here. Sent me a useful little good-luck charm."  
  
  
  
To be continued ... 


	5. Chapter 5

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 5  
  
The dark-haired girl's body writhed, her bare rear end twisting to the pounding drumbeat thumping out over the record player system. The two large speakers made the room pulse with sinister life. Abdul al-Kafir could feel his palms sweat as he watched the girl from his glassed-in gallery. The girl's barely postpubescent body was rolling across the tiled floor beneath him.  
  
He rubbed his palms on his thighs and raised his small swarthy left hand. He'd always had small hands. It had disturbed him as a boy, he remembered, watching his manicured left index finger as it pressed the red button.  
  
The button emitted a buzzing sound, and he could see the girl's body tense, felt part of himself tense as he watched.  
  
From where he sat, he could view the entire room. Drool began to drop from his lips as a gleaming stainless-steel door slid up into the upper wall and the glistening black bodies of three well-muscled Dobermans bounded in. The gleaming door closed.  
  
He could see the tension in the girl's body as she became frozen with fear. He felt himself go rigid with anticipation.  
  
Through the microphone feed he could hear her scream over the deep-throated growls of the Dobermans.  
  
His left hand trembled as he turned up the volume.  
  
The screaming grew louder.  
  
The girl edged back toward the far wall on her right, slipped on her bare feet and fell spread-eagled.  
  
The three Dobermans had stopped, watching her, their bodies quivering.  
  
Abdul al-Kafir's body quivered with them.  
  
He poised his left index finger over the green button. He was almost ready, his body trembling as he watched the dogs slowly advance on her.  
  
She was screaming something incomprehensible in the dialect of his native tongue.  
  
He liked white girls better -- they screamed in English and screamed so much louder.  
  
The girl was pleading, sobbing, as he lowered his finger on the green button.  
  
Suddenly, he heard the hiss of the door behind him as it opened.  
  
Enraged, he moved his hand from the button and looked up.  
  
Akhmed, his security chief, stood in the doorway.  
  
"Get out of here!" al-Kafir screamed.  
  
"But, master," pleaded Akhmed, his beady eyes shifting between al-Kafir and the scene in the room beyond the glass wall, "a small number of people have been spotted approaching the chalet from the mountainside. And a car comes. I fear, master, fear that they come for you."  
  
A part of Abdul al-Kafir went limp.  
  
He stood quickly and zipped his pants, kicking over an eighteen-karat gold bowl with his left foot. "Allah curse them!" He felt his mouth twist into a snarl. "Kill the girl. But do not harm the dogs -- to train them for this takes too long. See that the dogs are evacuated in the van. Immediately! And my car. It is ready?'  
  
"Yes, master."  
  
Abdul al-Kafir looked at the girl once more, heard her pleading. She was praying to him.  
  
"About the killing of the girl -- never mind that, Akhmed." Abdul al-Kafir pushed the green button. There was a buzzing sound different from the earlier noise and the three Dobermans lunged toward the girl, one for her face, one for her neck and one for her abdomen. She tried to twist away, but the drooling, white-fanged mouths of the dogs ripped into her flesh and began to tear her apart as if she were a rag doll.  
  
Al-Kafir sighed, but the magic of the moment was ruined for him.  
  
The screams died, and he saw a proud Doberman raise his blood-soaked head as he turned to leave the gallery.  
  
***  
  
Al-Kafir personally supervised the leading of the blood-splattered Dobermans into the special kennels in the dark-blue van. The attache case he clutched against his chest contained the sum of his available cash outside his Swiss bank accounts -- eighty-five thousand dollars in American currency -- and his address book. The latter was worth more to him.  
  
Akhmed -- tall, dark, robust -- exited the sprawling chalet and joined the three other members of the security force who surrounded al-Kafir as he started toward his vintage black Mercedes. Like the three others, Akhmed carried a submachine gun.  
  
Al-Kafir climbed into the rear seat of the Mercedes as Akhmed prepared to slam the door closed.  
  
A car -- another Mercedes -- was coming up the road fast, skidding slightly on the hard-packed snow.  
  
Al-Kafir's breath steamed in large clouds as he settled inside the cold car. Beside him, Akhmed shouted in English to the three German guards, "Stop that car -- quickly!"  
  
Al-Kafir hit the floor, feeling Akhmed shoving him down. He held his hands over his head. Gunfire roared. The clattering of submachine guns stuttered over the roar of the car's engine.  
  
Suddenly, the car wasn't moving. A short burst of submachine-gun fire was followed by a scream from one of the Germans.  
  
He waited there, huddled on the floor of the car for what seemed a long time.  
  
Finally he felt a hand on his shoulder. A powerful hand.  
  
He looked up into a broad black-cowled face, a large man with tremendous strength.  
  
"Would you join us, sir?" said a determined Hourman as he pulled a reluctant al-Kafir from the Mercedes with the vise-like grip of his right hand.  
  
Al-Kafir sagged back against the cold metal of his Mercedes and surveyed the scene.  
  
He didn't like what he saw. Akhmed, looking to be only partially conscious, was sitting against the bumper that was below the open rear cargo doors of the van housing the dogs. Inside, the animals were in a frenzy, throwing themselves against the doors of their cages. Two of the Germans were down in the snow. They were bleeding. The third German was on his knees in front of a big man dressed in what appeared to be a dark cat costume. The German's left arm hung limp and dislocated from the elbow down.  
  
A man in a gray and black costume with a bat on his chest was walking toward the other Mercedes. A gust of wind caught his long dark cape. Though attired oddly, the man looked very dangerous.  
  
Then a woman stepped from the back seat of the second Mercedes, black leather gloves disappearing under the sleeves of a midcalf-length coat. As she picked her way across the hard-packed snow of the driveway, a gust of wind caught at the coat, revealing a purple outfit with a slits running high that showed off her incredible legs. She also wore a purple and black cowl to hide her identity.  
  
Her green eyes stared through him. The wind caught at the hair protruding from beneath the cowl, and it shook like the mane of an Arabian stallion in its blackness and vibrance.  
  
In her hands was a whip.  
  
She spoke to her companions, "I see, boys, that Mr al-Kafir's men didn't give you too much of a problem."  
  
"Thank you for the compliment, Catwoman," the big man in yellow and black with a grip on al-Kafir answered.  
  
"Catwoman? Catwoman?" Al-Kafir's jaw dropped.  
  
"Abdul al-Kafir, what a thrill to meet you after so long," the woman smiled, making a limp-wristed gesture with the whip in her right hand. "I think we've had mutual friends for years, haven't we? It's lovely, I think, for competitors to be able to meet so openly, on such an intimate basis."  
  
"Yes, isn't it?" The man in the dark cat suit laughed.  
  
Catwoman approached al-Kafir, the wrist no longer limp. She started to slap the leather weapon into the palm of her left hand and stepped back as if to start snapping -- at al-Kafir's face. Al-Kafir felt himself swallow hard. "Uh, Catwoman," he faltered, "I --"  
  
"Al-Kafir," she chided, her lips full, the voice a soft alto. "You are the soul of the right-wing underground. We seek its most ardent devotee -- one False-Face. He's stolen something we want. Where can we find him?" The whip snapped out and struck the ground beside him, snow flew upwards into the air.  
  
"I do not know, Catwoman. His face is unknown to all -- he is a mystery, he is dangerous, too, this False-Face," pleaded al-Kafir.  
  
"Hourman?"  
  
It was the man with the bat on his chest who had spoken. The man who stood next to al-Kafir answered, "Yes, Batman?"  
  
"Al-Kafir has a peculiar habit and he needs his hands to have fun with it. Start breaking his fingers."  
  
"Sure thing." Hourman smiled. He started to reach for one of al-Kafir's hands.  
  
"Wait!" Al-Kafir had never heard such panic in his own voice.  
  
"For what?" Catwoman smiled.  
  
"Akhmed!" Al-Kafir shouted the name as shrilly as the girl had screamed for his mercy from the dogs, and immediately threw himself onto the snow away from the reach of Catwoman's whip.  
  
Akhmed had not been searched -- at least al-Kafir had not seen him being searched.  
  
A sudden burst of blazing gunfire sent the four costumed figures diving for cover. As al-Kafir rolled around the end of the Mercedes, he heard the wild barking of the dogs and Akhmed's familiar voice, somehow strained, shouting, "Kill!"  
  
***  
  
The Sandman peered through his specially made binoculars, faintly amused. It was interesting to watch someone else working instead of himself. The Arab, al-Kafir, had thrown himself to the ground, shouting something that was incomprehensible at a distance. Sandman watched from the tree line, part way up a slope that ran at an oblique angle to the driveway leading to the chalet. He shuffled his feet and watched. Hourman wheeled toward the Arab-looking man by the open cargo doors of the blue van. But Batman had moved first, throwing a Batarang. The Arab continued to fire his gun. More gunfire cracked through the air and Sandman watched as the Arab with the gun pushed a fat al-Kafir through the side cargo doors of the van. He didn't see anyone fall.  
  
The Sandman settled his gaze on Batman. Suddenly, there was a blur of blackness, then another. Sandman saw two dogs, Dobermans, large ones, spring onto the snow, their lips pulled back in vicious snarls, their man- killing teeth exposed and deadly. Wildcat straight-armed one of the Dobermans in the chest, knocking it to the snow. Catwoman snapped her whip and the other dog took stinging leather in midair, twitching, lurching. Batman threw himself at the animal as it tried to lunge at Catwoman.  
  
Batman and the dog rolled in the snow, the hurt dog trying to force its teeth into Batman's neck. Sandman then heard a bellowing yelp from the dog and saw its muscled body go limp. The Caped Crusader rolled away from the magnificent dog of Satan after incapcitating it.  
  
Hourman grabbed the third dog and it went down and didn't move.  
  
The blue van was moving, and suddenly Sandman, taken up with enjoying the spectacle of the fight, realized al-Kafir and his tall Arab guard were gone.  
  
The door of the van on the driver's side was slamming shut, the van already fishtailing as it skidded along the snowbank on the side of the driveway, sideswiping the Mercedes Batman and the others arrived in.  
  
Involuntarily, The Sandman recoiled as a grenade or some other explosive device with similar force went off. The Mercedes lurched skyward, a fireball of orange and yellow and black belching around it.  
  
Batman and Wildcat were running after the blue van. Hourman was helping Catwoman up from the snow, the back of her dark, midcalf-length fur coat white with the slick powder.  
  
Above the dying roar of the explosion, Sandman heard a familiar chopping sound coming from above him.  
  
A helicopter. He looked up and saw it. "What the hell?" was all he said.  
  
His weapons were secure in the interior pockets of his suit jacket, and now it looked as if he'd be needing them. Beneath the gas mask that covered his face, The Sandman felt the corners of his mouth turn down in a frown. Either more of al-Kafir's people had shown up, or a new player had sat down at the table. "At any rate," he said, "they're no friends of mine."  
  
Sandman, under cover of the tree line, started to move after al-Kafir. There was a still a job to be done and that meant making al-Kafir talk about stolen nerve gas canisters.  
  
***  
  
Colonel Flagg shouted to Ed Benson, "Stop this damn thing. The file says that blue van belongs to al-Kafir!"  
  
He threw open the door of the rented BMW and stepped out on the passenger side, a Colt .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol gripped tightly in both his fists. He fired skyward as the van bore down on them. It was stupid under the conditions, but the driver's-side window was open and he shouted it anyway. "Halt! In the name of the law!"  
  
The midnight-blue van kept coming.  
  
"Shoot the S.O.B's!" shouted Flagg's assistant, David Palms.  
  
Against his better judgement, but because it was the only thing practical, Colonel Flagg shouted, "Palms take the tires, Benson go for the radiator. I've got the open driver's-side window!"  
  
He swung the muzzle of the .45 on line, firing. It had a smooth trigger, he thought, for a factory gun. He let loose two shots and the van swerved, two more, the van's headlights were shot out. The blue van wasn't stopping. Flagg shrugged, maybe the tires were bullet-resistant.  
  
He saw it as the driver tossed it. "Grenade!" he yelled, and Flagg launched himself over the snowbank, out of the way, his gun in his right hand, another ammo clip in his left.  
  
He heard the explosion, his ears ringing with it, felt the concussion as it rippled over him, felt the snow pelting down on him.  
  
He pushed himself up, ejecting the old clip from the semiautomatic, then ramming a new clip up the gun's butt. As he emptied the clip again against the rear doors of the fast vanishing blue van, he could see his hands -- pink flesh in tiny shredded bits, flecked with blood.  
  
Flagg stepped back, stumbling in the snow and clambored over the snowbank. Ed Benson was moving, getting to his feet, gasping, "I'm okay, I think." But David Palms would never move again -- the whole left side of his body was ripped away, just like the roof and the hood of the BMW. Thick steaming splotches of dark-red blood and ragged chunks of pink flesh dotted the snow.  
  
Colonel Flagg wheeled and shouted after the van, "Dammit!"  
  
***  
  
Batman skidded on the slick ice at the end of the driveway where it met the road. He watched the van speed away. And there had been another explosion perhaps a half mile down the road, just over the hill. Another grenade.  
  
Overhead, the sounds of a helicopter filled the air with a staccato fury, and behind him, Catwoman screamed.  
  
"Batman!"  
  
Batman slipped again as he spun around, caught his balance and started to run. He could see Wildcat midway between him and Catwoman, Hourman beside her. The injured German guard was now sitting with his back propped against the side of al-Kafir's abandoned Mercedes.  
  
The Caped Crusader was trying to figure out just whose helicopter was coming at them and what to do about it when ski-borne commandos armed with assault rifles and machine guns appeared from both sides of al-Kafir's chalet. The place was beginning to get crowded, Batman thought to himself.  
  
Wildcat was already getting ready to do battle.  
  
The Sikorsky was close, but Batman couldn't look up and keep his balance on the ice-coated snow as he ran.  
  
"The chopper, Hourman -- the chopper!"  
  
As if the occupants of the helicopter had heard him, knew of the impending threat, machine-guns echoed fire overhead. Both sides of the snowpacked driveway on which Batman ran were churning under the impact, and the Masked Manhunter's hands came up to protect his face.  
  
He could see Catwoman through the storm of snow spit up by the machine-gun fire. Hourman was keeping her down beside the smoldering wreckage of the Mercedes.  
  
The ski troops -- he counted twelve of them -- were less than two hundred yards from the chalet, their assault rifles and subguns starting to spit fire.  
  
"Dammit!" yelled Wildcat as he dropped to his knees to where Batman came to a rest to take cover. The snow around them churned as machine-gun fire rained down from the chopper as it made a second pass.  
  
Batman knew their only chance was to disable the aircraft.  
  
"Hourman," the Caped Crusader yelled over the gunfire, "You've got to bring that chopper down!"  
  
Hourman pushed Catwoman closer to the car and then took off for the nearest line of trees. He moved not quite as fast as The Flash, but it was at amazing speed. His eye caught just the size tree he was looking for. With his enhanced strength, the Man of the Hour snapped the tree near the base.  
  
Lifting the tree easily, he started to move back into the open.  
  
Batman could see the helicopter was coming in low and fast, its machine guns sending out invitations to death.  
  
Suddenly, from seemingly out of nowhere, a small tree flew and hit the helicopter with a loud thud. With a sickening jerk, the rotor mechanism stopped. Like a giant bug, the chopper and tree seemed to hang motionless in the air for a split second. Then it started to come down.  
  
"Wildcat," Batman yelled. "The snowbank -- hit it!"  
  
Batman was moving fast, throwing himself over the snowbank, shouting to Catwoman and Hourman, "She's coming down. Take cover!"  
  
His right shoulder hit the snowbank hard, his body taking the roll. His mouth filled with snow as he skidded down, and then the ground began to shake under him as he heard the first sound wave, felt the first shock wave.  
  
Bits of flaming debris rained down, and the snow was whipped into a skin- searing blizzard. Over the dying roar of the fatally wounded helicopter, Batman heard something that sounded almost like a scream but barely human enough to be recognized as belonging to a man.  
  
He rolled onto his back, his left hand protecting his face from the intense heat of the fireball that had erupted from the chopper's ruptured fuel tanks.  
  
"Catwoman!" He screamed her name. He was up and running now. The ski troops had taken cover beside the walls of the chalet, but they were moving again.  
  
Their automatic weapons opened up and hurled their cargo into the devastating scene in front of the chalet.  
  
"Catwoman!" It was a loud whisper, like something from inside him rather than the sound of his own voice. She was moving, held tight against Hourman's hip.  
  
The snow beside Catwoman and Hourman ripped up in a wave, bursts of automatic-weapon fire hammered into it but missing the fast-moving Man of the Hour who was carrying Catwoman. Batman glanced to his right. Wildcat was still alive, had survived the burning wreckage of the helicopter which covered the width of the driveway. He was running.  
  
Batman was less than fifty yards from Catwoman. She turned and saw him, and he could see her eyes suddenly widen. "Batman -- save yourself!" she yelled.  
  
He kept running toward her and Hourman.  
  
Twenty-five yards. Twenty. Hourman was running, leaving Catwoman for an instant by the side of their Mercedes. The powerful hero drew fire as he rolled across the snow toward the end of the driveway. Then he was up on his feet. Hourman ran, diving into the snow near the far edge of the driveway. Batman narrowed the distance to Catwoman to ten yards.  
  
Seeing a movement coming toward him, Batman wheeled half-right, dropping a man with an M-1 rifle as he skied down toward Hourman. He saw Wildcat diving for a snowbank as more shots rang out.  
  
Batman dodged left, toward Catwoman crouched beside the wrecked Mercedes.  
  
"Get down, dammit, Selina," the Caped Crusader rasped as he skidded across the snow and dropped beside her.  
  
He pushed her down hard.  
  
Two men attacked from opposite sides of the auto. Batman rose and quickly dropped the two of them in quick fashion. A third spun into the snowbank after trying to confront Hourman.  
  
"Batman!"  
  
It was Wildcat.  
  
"More of them coming up!" he yelled.  
  
Batman twisted around. At the far end of the driveway, where it met the road, he could see two men running beyond the smoldering ruins of the helicopter. They were dressed different. Not the same as the ski troops.  
  
His photographic mind recognized one of the men as a Colonel Sam Flagg. They had met some years ago on another mission.  
  
"The CIA -- all we need," Batman yelled to Catwoman.  
  
"Here?" she asked incredulously.  
  
"Don't ask me, this isn't my scenario." Heavy assault rifle and subgun fire ripped into the steel of the scorched and twisted trunk lid. Another member of the ski troops tried to sneak up on him while his attention was diverted. But the Caped Crusader from Gotham City dropped him quickly.  
  
"Keep your head down!" he yelled to Catwoman again.  
  
Batman shouted to Wildcat as he pointed, "Those guys are CIA -- Colonel Flagg, remember?"  
  
"Here?" screeched Wildcat.  
  
"Same thing Catwoman said," Batman shouted back across the snowpacked driveway. Then he turned toward the wreckage of the helicopter. Flagg and the other CIA man were crouched beside the mangled tail section. "Flagg! The bad guys are the ones on skis. Stay back!" Batman shouted.  
  
He didn't wait for an answer. There were at least ten of the ski troops still moving; there must have been more of them than he had originally seen. They slalomed along the sides of the slopes, firing their weapons with each pass.  
  
Wildcat and Hourman stood shoulder to shoulder, two big men fighting for more than just their lives. Their hands reaching out and three more ski troopers went down.  
  
Batman heard a voice shouting something, but he couldn't make it out. The skiers changed their pattern of movement, forming a wedge and started down the slope on the far side of the driveway, their weapons blazing death.  
  
"Did you hear what he said?" asked Catwoman.  
  
"I couldn't make it out," Batman said.  
  
"Something like ... forget them ... we want al-Kafir. Something like that."  
  
"Keep your head down, now!" Batman lurched against her, shoving her down, shielding her with his body. Seven skiers were coming fast, shooting up over Wildcat and Hourman's position. The wedge broke toward the twisted Mercedes.  
  
Gunfire echoed and reechoed from the body of the Mercedes as Batman covered Catwoman with his body.  
  
He managed to get up and drop one of the skiers, but six slipped away across the drop of the slope paralleling the driveway and sped toward the road. "They're out to get al-Kafir, dammit!" Batman exclaimed. He was up, hauling Catwoman to her feet.  
  
He ran across the driveway with Catwoman and pulled back the mask on an unconscious skier. German possibly. Definitely European. Who, he wondered, had sent them? They were well trained, and their equipment was first rate. They must have been dropped higher on the slope by the helicopter.  
  
Hourman ran up next to the Caped Crusader, glancing down at the unconscious skier's boots. The foot size was too small.  
  
He ran toward the snowbank and yelled to Wildcat, "Find me one of those goons with a size twelve or so boots, hurry!"  
  
He crossed the snowbank and checked another knocked out skier. This one was a younger man, Hourman guessed. Again, the boots were too small.  
  
"Here, Hourman!" It was Wildcat, and Batman ran toward him. "His gunboats look as big as yours."  
  
Hourman began putting on the ski boots, Wildcat helping.  
  
Behind him, Batman could hear Colonel Flagg, "What the hell is goin' on here, Batman? What are you costumed freaks doin' here?"  
  
"Not CIA business, so don't push it, Colonel, or you'll be all over the front page of Pravda. American imperialist secret police invade Austria -- shit like that."  
  
"What are you doing?" Flagg continued.  
  
Still without looking, Hourman slipped a boot on his foot. Sitting in the snow, he told Flagg, "I've got to stop that scum in the blue van."  
  
"Abdul al-Kafir?" Flagg remarked, raising his eyebrow slightly.  
  
"Yeah," growled Hourman, "got to get him -- probably want him for the same reason you want him."  
  
"On skis," questioned Flagg, "you're gonna catch him on skis?"  
  
"You drove up the same way we did probably," Batman told the man. "Past Kandahar. Now al-Kafir's going to have to go around it. But it looks like there's a side trail there," said the Masked Manhunter, pointing along the mountain, "that would intersect the road."  
  
"You're crazy, Batman --" retorted Flagg.  
  
Ignoring the government man, the Caped Crusader turned his attention back to Hourman. "Do you ski?" asked Batman.  
  
"I'll learn," the Man of the Hour replied, looking at his watch, calculating how much time he had left on his Miraclo pill.  
  
"The bastard blew up our car," Flagg snapped.  
  
Hourman stood up. Wildcat had set out the skis and was finding a set of poles. Hourman stepped into the bindings and locked them. Catwoman was picking her way across the slick, iced-over snow, and Batman watched her for an instant.  
  
"Is this what it always feels like to be on the good side?" she asked. "People shooting at you, risking your life? How do you guys do it?"  
  
"Someone has to do it," Wildcat replied.  
  
Flagg rolled his eyes skyward. "You costumed freaks need to just walk away from this and allow the proper authorities handle it."  
  
Before Batman could answer, Hourman said, "Sir, just because I do respect the rule of law, please don't labor under the misapprehension I wouldn't break your legs should that become necessary."  
  
Catwoman and Wildcat laughed.  
  
Catwoman reached out to Hourman and kissed him quickly on the cheek. "I still don't like you," she said with a grin.  
  
"The feeling is ever mutual, madame." That was Hourman. Cuddly as ever.  
  
There was something like the flicker of a smile in Catwoman's green eyes. "And please don't get killed. I was rather looking forward to that pleasure myself some day," she said jokingly.  
  
"I'll do my best," Hourman nodded. He stabbed his poles into the snow. They weren't quite the right height but they'd do. He shouted, "Meet you in the village. Have a nice walk."  
  
He didn't really think they'd walk. There was likely another car in the garage under the base of the chalet. But cross-country was the only way to catch Abdu al-Kafir and the blue van -- maybe.  
  
To be continued ... 


	6. Chapter 6

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 6  
  
The Sandman dug in with the inside edge of his downhill ski and brought himself to a stop. The blue van was still roughly parallel to him but more than a mile away on the road beneath him. He started to move again, but caught himself. On one of the more remote slopes of the Kandahar he saw movement, like a man in motion down the slope. Dangling his poles from his wrists, he snatched up the binoculars, smudging condensation from the lenses and swung them to the Kandahar. It was one of the finest slopes in the world. He focused on the man. The yellow and black outfit was unmistakeable.  
  
"Hourman," he said to himself. Sandman watched his colleague for a moment, studying his technique. There was no technique. Hourman looked like he was barely controlling his descent down the mountain. Hourman's body flexed in the turns, as he tried to control his speed. Sandman guessed that he had never learned how to ski.  
  
It was clear what Hourman was doing -- making up for lost time by taking the faster, more dangerous slope in an effort to intersect the road and get ahead of the fleeing van. It was a good strategy, and Hourman was roughly parallel to him now.  
  
"Very good, my friend," Sandman remarked as he watched through the binoculars. "But for your sake, I hope you know what you're doing or you'll kill yourself." The Sandman let the binoculars fall to his side and grabbed at the handles of his poles again, digging in, bending his body low as he attacked the slope.  
  
He would need greater speed now in order to intercept the blue van. His body bent forward over the tips of his skis and he threw himself into the downhill, fast and dangerous.  
  
***  
  
Hourman used body English to slow himself as he moved into the turn, skidding a little on the edge of his ski, his poles digging in.  
  
Truth be told -- he hadn't a clue of what he was doing. But it seemed like a wild ride.  
  
On the road a thousand yards beneath him, he could see the dark form of the speeding van. The only way to beat the Arab to the point of the road beneath this side trail of Kandahar, he thought, would be to run it all out. And that's what he was doing. And somewhere ahead of him -- somewhere, though he couldn't see them -- were six of the heavily armed ski troops.  
  
If everyone from Catwoman and the JSA to the CIA was coming to Abdul al- Kafir for information on False-Face, Hourman surmised the ski troops were representing False-Face, sent to eliminate al-Kafir as a possible source of betrayal.  
  
"What the hell," he rasped into the wind, and he knifed his body into the downhill run. At the speed he was building to, a fall could mean a broken back or neck -- likely death, and that would be preferable to the alternates. The Miraclo pill increased his ability to withstand pain, but it didn't make him invulnerable.  
  
The frigid air around him was numbing now, carrying with it the buffeting of the wind. His body danced on his skis for balance, his knees flexed, the poles tucked under his armpits -- just like he saw real skiers do on television. A sudden shift in balance would be disaster now, he knew.  
  
Hourman could no longer feel the pain of the wind and cold against his face. With his hips over his skis, he swung his shoulders fast, working his ankles and veering right around a mogul, flexing back, bending into the slope. The blue van was barely visible through the blizzard of ice and snow whipped up by the wind.  
  
His lips drawn back, Hourman felt his teeth bared. He sucked his breath against the cold, trying to warm the air in his mouth before taking it into his lungs. The trail split ahead of him. To the left, ran a gentler slope, but Hourman could see now that it curved along the side of the mountain and would take him perhaps a mile out of his way.  
  
To the right, the trail was steeper, sharper. A sign posted in German warned him off his chosen path. Ten feet beyond it another sign, this one in bold orange letters, simply read "Gefahr." It was German for danger.  
  
"No kidding," the Man of the Hour snarled into the wind, taking the path to his right. Another sign read Halt! It meant the same in German as it did in English, but it was too late now for Hourman to stop. And then he saw why the signs had been posted. A quarter mile ahead, the trail swept up suddenly and beyond it was nothing but the blue sky.  
  
He worked his body English, turning himself, nearly losing it. Regaining his balance, he slowed and stopped, amazed that he could actually do that.  
  
Ahead, beyond the drop-off, he could see airspace, and perhaps a hundred feet beyond it, virgin snow. There was no telling if the lip of the trail was solid or merely formed from blowing and drifting snow.  
  
If it was solid, considering the distance down, he could try for a jump and hope to make it across.  
  
"If," he murmured.  
  
He could no longer see the road, and backtracking to where the two trails had diverged would take forever.  
  
He looked behind him, then ahead.  
  
It was reckless. It was stupid. But if al-Kafir died before he gave up whatever it was he knew about False-Face, then perhaps the VX nerve gas canisters would be lost. Perhaps False-Face was even now preparing to release the contents of one, to kill millions of innocent people, he thought.  
  
He shrugged and arched his eyebrows beneath his cowl. "Oh, well ..." If the lip of the trail was only of snow, or if the gap between one side of the small saddle back and the other was too wide he hoped he would die quickly and not have to endure the agony of freezing to death and every bone in his body broken.  
  
He dug in his poles and kicked off trying to focus his thoughts on making the jump. He had about four hundred yards to work up speed. He tried to focus on something ... How many bones were in the human body anyway? Two hundred six? Was that right?  
  
The lip of the trail was coming, and Hourman's direction suddenly changed. The trail was like a ramp now and his body was low as he rocketed upward, steeper and steeper.  
  
He could feel the edge of the lip giving way, but he was already launched into the air, his shoulders hunched, his head down, his poles up, his knees flexed for the impact. He was falling, but still traveling forward. Below him were snow-splotched rocks. He focused his eyes ahead. The edge of the far side of the saddle was farther away than he had thought. He tucked up, then angled his body forward over the tips of his skis, trying to push the last millimeter of distance from the jump.  
  
His rate of descent was too fast. He thought he would fall below the edge of the far side of the saddle before he had traveled far enough outward. He arched his back, leaning at a sharp angle, almost flat across his skis now.  
  
He felt the impact, and his body vibrated with it. His legs wavering dangerously, his balance shifting radically.  
  
Finally, he got his balance and redistributed his weight. He crouched his body into a tuck. He was moving at an incredible rate of speed.  
  
His lungs suddenly felt cold with the intake of air.  
  
But he kept going.  
  
The trail curved as it gently banked downhill. From his uphill position, Hourman could see the midnight-blue van of al-Kafir again. The van had more than a mile to travel before it reached the segment of road beneath the trail.  
  
The Man of the Hour leaned over his skis, tucked up his poles, and turned into the curve. Now, he was heading straight down. One mistake and he'd be dead. In the distance, he could see a single-clad shape racing down the opposite slope.  
  
It wasn't one of the ski troopers, unless whoever it was had thrown away his snow smock and replaced it with a purple cape.  
  
It looked as if he was wearing fedora hat on his head, too.  
  
"Somebody is throwing one hell of a party," he said to himself.  
  
The trail zigzagged left, a massive mogul at its approximate center. Hourman leaned to the trail's right embankment, spiked his poles into the snow, and launched himself over the mogul.  
  
The figure on the opposite slope was in sharper definition. From the general build and the way the person handled the skis, he was putting every once of energy into it.  
  
Hourman felt his lips curl in a smile against the wind. He knew who it was.  
  
The Man of the Hour skied the rim of the embankment again and bounced over another mogul. He came down hard and fast and maneuvered his way into balance again. The trail was almost at an end, the road coming up fast.  
  
To his right, he saw the van and he could almost make out the figure behind the windshield.  
  
There was apparently a third trail, one he hadn't seen, for two hundred yards behind the blue van, he could see the half-dozen ski troopers in hot pursuit.  
  
The van fishtailed as it picked up speed. Assault rifle and subgun fire cracked out behind the van, coming from the advancing ski troopers. Across the road, coming down the far slope, he could see the mysterious skier. Both of his poles had been transferred to his left hand, and in the right the shape of a funny-looking gun jutted forth.  
  
With the speed at which he traveled, Hourman judged that he and Sandman -- he knew it was Sandman -- would intersect the road at approximately the same instant, and at approximately the same spot, from opposite sides. They would be between the van and the six ski troopers.  
  
Somehow, the prospect of all this didn't make the Man of the Hour feel very comfortable.  
  
Hourman continued to coast forward.  
  
The trail started upward, toward the embankment of snow that flanked the road.  
  
He looked up to see Sandman airborne, sailing over the far embankment.  
  
Hourman dug in his poles, twisting his body, digging his poles into the snow and ice on the road.  
  
Beside him, less than ten feet away, was Sandman. He held his wirepoon gun in his right hand. He certainly couldn't look at Wesley's face because of the gas mask that covered it.  
  
Gunfire began to stutter from behind them.  
  
He glanced toward Sandman and gave him a slight nod with a smile.  
  
Sandman was looking at him.  
  
Their eyes met through the goggles of the gas mask.  
  
Hourman shouted to his JSA teammate, "Nice to see you, Sandman!"  
  
"Same, here!" came back the somewhat muffled shout.  
  
Taking his poles in both hands, Hourman dug in and executed a 180-degree turn. He came down hard and pushed himself backward down the road after the receding van. It would be seconds before he lost momentum or hit a rut.  
  
Assault-rifle continued from the ski troopers.  
  
Hourman stabbed his poles into the ice-slicked snow of the road, twisting, losing his balance, starting to fall. Suddenly, Sandman was beside him, supporting him for an instant. The Man of the Hour regained his balance, nodded to Sandman and shouted over the roar of gunfire from behind and the laboring engine noises of the blue van fifty yards ahead, "I'm all right!"  
  
Sandman nodded, twisted on his skis and fired his wirepoon at the van. A shout informed Hourman, "Missed!"  
  
As Sandman reset his wirepoon for another shot, Hourman turned away, digging his poles into the snow.  
  
"Together -- together we can get them!" Sandman shouted.  
  
Hourman glanced to the man and nodded as he zigzagged on his skis to avoid the assault-rifle fire from the ski troopers behind. Gunfire tracked along the road surface and cutting waves of ice chips pelted up at him.  
  
"Ready?" Sandman shouted.  
  
"For what?" asked Hourman.  
  
"When my wirepoon strikes the van, it will reel us into it!"  
  
Hourman raised his eyebrows and stared at Sandman. "And what is it that you want me to do?"  
  
"Just grab me and hang on!"  
  
Hourman nodded. "Okay!"  
  
Sandman shouted, "My count of three. One, two ..." Hourman got ready to grab hold of his colleague. "Three!"  
  
Hourman twisted right and grabbed the Sandman's suitcoat just behind the left shoulder. He heard the coughing sound of the wirepoon as the stainless- steel bolt with barbs at the end hit the van and pulled the attached wire that was spooling out of the gun that Sandman was holding.  
  
The Man of the Hour twisted forward, struggling to keep his balance.  
  
"We did it!" Sandman shouted as he started to grab the wire and pulled himself and Hourman toward the van.  
  
"Here!" Sandman yelled. "Grab the wire! With your increased strength, it'll be easier for you to pull us to the van!"  
  
Reaching out with his left hand, while still holding Sandman with his right, Hourman grabbed hold of the thin wire. Sandman switched positions and grabbed hold of the back of Hourman's tunic.  
  
Hourman started to pull them closer and closer to the speeding van that was now fishtailing all over the road.  
  
Suddenly, Sandman's ski hit a rut and he felt his balance going. He was falling, cursing his luck as he had to let go of Hourman who continued to rocket ahead.  
  
Sandman sprawled onto the road surface. His bindings sprung open, and his left ski slithered down the road ahead of him.  
  
The Sandman spread-eagled his arms and legs to slow his spinning skid across the ice-slicked snow. He raised his head to see Hourman still pulling himself toward the van. But then suddenly, Hourman was airborne, going over an embankment of snow and ice. Sandman saw his teammate's left ski twist away and split in half. Hourman was airborne for one instant, then gone from sight with a shout of rage.  
  
But now there was another problem and that came in the form of the six armed ski troopers coming fast toward The Sandman. The six, thinking that they were opposing just one ordinary man, formed a close-knit wedge as they approached the masked vigilante from New York City.  
  
From the holster underneath his suit jacket, The Sandman pulled out his new gas gun. He adjusted the nozzle at the end of the barrel. Looking back up, he saw that he only had seconds before the ski troopers were upon him. Aiming toward the left of the wedge, Sandman pulled the trigger and an orange cloud of gas spewed out of the gun.  
  
Keeping his finger pressed on the trigger, The Sandman moved his arm from left to right, making sure that none of the six could possibly avoid skiing right into the cloud of knockout gas.  
  
In a matter of seconds, that was exactly what happened. The six ski troopers went through the orange cloud and were instantly knocked unconscious, spilling like ten pins in a bowling alley on the icy road.  
  
"That takes care of that problem," The Sandman remarked to himself.  
  
Sandman reholstered his gas gun. As he retrieved his ski, his only thought was to catch the blue van and al-Kafir. And the only way to intercept the van was to try to quickly look for the best spot to shoot over the embankment. He saw it, and dug in his poles.  
  
As Sandman shot up the embankment that had tripped up Hourman, he could hear his colleague shouting to him, "I'll catch up as best I can!"  
  
Ahead there was another embankment as the road made a hairpin curve. Sandman sideslipped a mogul, gaining speed. The wind had chiseled the top of the embankment flat and Sandman launched himself toward it.  
  
He was roughly parallel to the van now and could see the burly Arab behind the wheel. Al-Kafir, he thought, must still be in the back.  
  
Al-Kafir's driver had seen him and raised a pistol to fire. Sandman realized he was in danger. As the Arab swung his gun out the driver's-side window, Sandman freed his wrist from the strap and held his right pole at the balance point. The Sandman hurtled it with all his might toward the driver. The pole whistled through the open window and burrowed into the driver's head slightly forward and above his left ear. The big Arab slumped over the wheel. The van went into a sudden zigzag, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir screaming for help from the back.  
  
The Sandman felt his lips twist into a grin. The van hammered repeatedly against the embankment, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir moaning as he bounced around the inside.  
  
Suddenly, the van caught a rut and angled sharply, away from the embankment toward the far side of the road. Sandman could see the ground drop off to a precipice ahead. The van would go over the side, and al-Kafir would be killed. "Jump for it!" Sandman shouted.  
  
Al-Kafir's whining in the cold air made him somehow nauseated. "I can't. I'm afraid!"  
  
Sandman could see the angle of the van and the edge of the road. In less than a minute, perhaps much less, the van would be over the side.  
  
The Sandman hurled himself toward the van, praying the impact would break his bindings before he broke his ankles or his legs.  
  
He slammed down hard on the roof of the careering vehicle, his skis gone. He could feel his body starting to roll off the roof of the runaway van.  
  
Summoning all of his force, he stabbed the remaining ski pole downward into the roof of the van.  
  
His right hand reached for the pole and grabbed at it, as his left hand slid across the roof line and fingers locked over the opening for the driver's window.  
  
The pole snapped with a crack, and Sandman's body lurched to the right. As he started to slide from the roof, his right hand made a desperate grab for the window opening on the passenger side.  
  
He was falling. His hands clutched at the opening, and his feet dragged in the snow. Pain shot up his back but if he let go he knew al-Kafir would die and take whatever information he had on False-Face to the grave with him.  
  
The Sandman felt the muscles in his arms extend. His neck was tight with pain. With his jaw set, he tugged himself forward, his left hand reaching for the door handle.  
  
He had it, and the door swung open, Sandman's body swinging with it. His feet ripped a burrow in the snow. He swung his right foot up and wedged it against the interior of the door. The door slapped closed, pressing his body between door and doorframe. His right hand stabbed out for the steering wheel, which was jammed beneath the deadweight of the driver.  
  
The lip of the road was less than fifty yards away. The Sandman had to gamble. He threw his body forward and across the seat. If he fell now, he would go under the wheels.  
  
He could hear al-Kafir screaming from the back of the van. Another sound made his blood run cold. A third Doberman was still in the van, and the door of his cage must have rattled loose from all the shaking.  
  
Sandman pulled the body of the dead driver aside, and twisted in behind the wheel. In the rearview mirror, he could see past the hinged Plexiglas sheet that seperated the driver's compartment from the rear of the van. A huge dark shape lunged at al-Kafir.  
  
The van went into a slide, and The Sandman fought the wheel into the skid.  
  
He could see over the edge of the road -- perhaps six feet and then nothing.  
  
Inside his gloves, his hands sweated.  
  
The Doberman continued his ferocious assault on al-Kafir and Sandman winced at the thought of the damage such an animal could inflict.  
  
He started pumping the brake, first pressure, then no pressure, again and again.  
  
As the snarls of the Doberman merged with al-Kafir's desperate cries for help, The Sandman increased the brake pressure. Gradually, the van slowed. The rear end danced to the right, coming within feet of the soft precipice.  
  
Finally, it came to a stop.  
  
Sandman heard a throttled cry and looked back into the cargo bay of the van. The Doberman's huge mouth seemed to cover al-Kafir's entire face, tearing at his throat. Al-Kafir's blood flowed freely, and as The Sandman watched, the fat Arab's hands dropped from the dog's neck. He saw a glint of steel as al-Kafir came up with a sleek, thin dagger in a last desperate attempt to save his life. The blade swept upward and plunged into the Doberman's stomach.  
  
The big black dog let out a piercing yelp and whipped its head to the side, tearing away half of al-Kafir's throat with its sudden movement. The big animal's back legs jerked in spasms, slipping in the pool of blood that gushed from al-Kafir's neck. The Arab's chubby hand still gripped the jeweled handle of the dagger as the dog collapsed on him.  
  
The Sandman pushed open the Plexiglas divider and stared into the cargo area. The hot blood steamed as cold air swept through the van. Al-Kafir was propped against the inside of the van, his eyes bulging grotesquely from his face. Sandman could see the exposed vertebrae of his neck where the Doberman had ripped his way through muscle and tendon. The dog's blood- covered snout lay across al-Kafir's chest.  
  
Nothing moved.  
  
Finally, The Sandman summoned up the strength to crawl into the back of the van.  
  
A briefcase lay on the floor, the lock secured. Sandman took a small pry bar from under jacket and pried at the lockplate. It resisted.  
  
He shrugged, using the pry bar instead to punch through and rip the leather.  
  
Inside was American money -- a lot of it, in fifties and hundreds. He decided he'd determine its fate later.  
  
Under the money was an address book.  
  
He opened it and saw what appeared to be phone numbers. But there were no names attached. The Sandman figured that if they were important enough to be in code, they were important enough to read.  
  
He looked at the lifeless al-Kafir, the man who Catwoman had said enjoyed watching young girls being ripped apart by dogs.  
  
He felt that some sort of justice had prevailed.  
  
He didn't try to feel sorry.  
  
  
  
To be continued ... 


	7. Chapter 7

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 7  
  
  
  
"I'm smarter than I look," Wildcat laughed, poring over al-Kafir's address book. Catwoman sat on the edge of Wildcat's chair, while Batman leaned against the mantle, Hourman beside him. Sandman looked over Wildcat and Catwoman's shoulders at the address book.  
  
Sandman spoke, "Actually, I have done some work with codes and this appears to be something that I've seen before."  
  
"I have a friend," Catwoman piped up, "who loves working anagrams and puzzles -- and I think Batman knows who I'm talking about."  
  
"No, Catwoman, we're not going to seek assistance from The Riddler."  
  
"But ..." she started to plead her case.  
  
"Never mind," he cut her off. "Continue please, Sandman." Batman shifted his weight off the mantle. As he walked around the room, he started to feel stiff. He needed a hot shower but he needed the lead first and hoped al- Kafir's book would provide it.  
  
"I think I know what this is," The Sandman said. "Bring the telephone over, Hourman."  
  
"Gotcha, Sandman."  
  
Hourman picked up the phone and noticed that the cord would not reach where Sandman, Wildcat and Catwoman were. He shrugged. He wasn't expecting any calls anyway. He ripped the cord from the wall and brought the phone to the table where Wildcat and Catwoman sat.  
  
"What do you want with this?" Hourman asked.  
  
"Save me trying to remember the dial. You ripped it out of the wall?" Sandman laughed, looking at the frayed cord and then at Hourman.  
  
"When I'm tired I do stuff like that, and I'm tired," Hourman replied.  
  
Catwoman chuckled. "If I'd done what you done, I'd be tired, too."  
  
Batman nodded, sitting down opposite Catwoman and Wildcat. His eyes stung from fatigue.  
  
"Okay," Sandman began. "This is a very basic kind of code and so obvious it's the sort of thing you could put a mechanical calculator on and blow out a fuse with it."  
  
Hourman walked over to the table, and stared down.  
  
"All right. First, the telephone dial. The number 1 doesn't have any letters with it, and the letter 0 at the other end isn't really a letter at all. It's really a zero, and there aren't any letters with it either. So, you look at these phone numbers and count the number 1 and the 0 as placeholders. Positioners if you like."  
  
Batman nodded. "I follow you, Sandman.  
  
Hourman said with a laugh. "What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
"A very basic code I believe, Hourman," Wildcat observed.  
  
"Right," The Sandman said. He looked back at the address book. "Okay. He has a phone number in here -- area code 217, then 660-5031. I don't think it's anyone's phone number. I think it spells out Arnold."  
  
Catwoman piped up. "Arnold Tosch is a jewel fence and a member of the right- wing underground. He also uses assassins on occasion."  
  
"Here's how it works, " The Sandman continued. "The first letter of Arnold is A, and that corresponds to the number 2 on the dial. But with the A there's also B and C."  
  
"So how do you know which one is which," Wildcat interrupted.  
  
"The placeholders or identifiers, like I said. In 217, the 2 shows which hole in the dial, the 1 shows us which position the letter is in. If it had been Ackroyd instead of Arnold, it would have been 207 instead of 217, because the 0 would signify to use the last letter of the triad. If the name were Abner instead of Arnold, he wouldn't have used a 1 or an 0 -- just moved to the next key for the next letter."  
  
"So a ten digit phone number spells out Arnold?"  
  
"Right, Wildcat, and this next number is --" Sandman peered at the book, "Yes, here, area code 816 and the phone number is 070-2044, a fake prefix if I ever heard one. The repetition of the number 4 is just doubling the letter H at the end of Arnold Tosch. Al-Kafir probably has addresses the same way and other information, too, all like phone numbers. So all I've got to do is translate these phone numbers, and we can work a decoding of the whole book -- everything."  
  
"I shall borrow some additional telephones, then we can share your burden," Hourman proclaimed. Batman didn't even want to know how Hourman planned to do it.  
  
An hour later, they had come up with a detailed reference to False-Face. Apparently, False-Face could be contacted through a woman known as Blaze Fields. No further translation had been necessary after that.  
  
Blaze Fields was known to Catwoman as another right-wing sympathizer in the criminal underground.  
  
Hourman had started down to the hotel lobby to use a working telephone. Batman didn't know how he would explain his costume. But he returned after only a moment. "Those gentlemen from the CIA, I think they wish to converse with us," Hourman announced, as he reentered the room.  
  
"You led them to here?" Wildcat asked.  
  
Hourman merely shrugged.  
  
Batman asked, "Any local authorities with them?"  
  
"My first thought, Batman. Apparently not, however."  
  
"Sandman in the bathroom -- quick!" Batman ordered.  
  
Sandman quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out some large white pills that were round. He gave everyone one of the pills and instructed, "Everybody swallow the pill, it will protect you from the effects of any gas I may use."  
  
There was a knock at the door. Hourman's eyes flickered toward Batman. Batman nodded. He listened, watching.  
  
Hourman opened the door. "Yes -- ahh -- our American spy friends from the snowfields!"  
  
Wildcat started to laugh, hearing Colonel Flagg but not seeing him yet.  
  
"Look, you son of a bitch. Your friends left me and Benson out there near al-Kafir's house to freeze to death, or whatever, while that dame and the guy in the cat suit and Batman took the only car that wasn't blown up and drove away like bats outta hell -- pardon the expression. Where's the rest of your costumed little buddies?"  
  
"In here, Colonel Flagg," Wildcat sang out. He gave Catwoman a wink and she smiled back at him. She was pretty, he thought, more than pretty.  
  
Hourman stepped aside, and Colonel Flagg and the other CIA man stalked through the doorway. Flagg blurted out, "If this were stateside all you'd be in the slammer for everything from assault, to murder, to the Mann Act."  
  
"Mann Act? Doesn't that involve underage girls?" Catwoman smiled. "I'm flattered, Colonel Flagg, but I'm not underage."  
  
"I didn't mean you, lady. I meant what we found left of some poor kid in al- Kafir's chalet."  
  
"Al-Kafir is dead," Batman told Flagg matter-of-factly.  
  
"Yeah," nodded Flagg, "we found the van. Shouldn't keep pets if you can't take care of them. But what about that False-Face?" Flagg insisted, advancing across the room.  
  
"When we get something concrete you'll get it, too. I wish I could expect the same from you, Colonel." Batman replied without conviction.  
  
"I want you and this JSA and this lady jewel thief and this yellow gorrilla and that guy in the cat suit outta my hair. This is government business," ordered Flagg.  
  
"Or what?" Catwoman purred. Batman turned to look at her. "Just what does the government want with False-Face?"  
  
"You know damn well what we want, lady. And from what I know about you, you want to steal 'em." Flagg was feeling rude.  
  
"Ohh," smiled Catwoman, "Those gas canisters. Yes, that would be nice."  
  
"So back off," Flagg shouted. "Just damn well back off, 'cause if the law here in Austria can't touch you, I'll touch you, all of you, so help me. I'm tired, cold, angry, and I got the President of the United States breathing down my neck for those nerve gas canisters."  
  
Wildcat lowered his voice to a whisper, saying, "Sorry about one of your guys getting killed. Is there anything we can do in regards to him?"  
  
Flagg stabbed his hands into his pockets, looked down at the floor for an instant and then at Wildcat. "No, I don't think so."  
  
Colonel Flagg then turned his attention back to Batman. "There was a briefcase loaded with money in al-Kafir's van. If you didn't take the money, you took something else. I want it."  
  
"Nothing you'd be interested in," Batman advised.  
  
"Don't play dumb, Batman," Flagg retorted. "You're not as good at it is I am."  
  
Wildcat looked at Catwoman and smiled.  
  
Flagg's right hand flashed under his coat and reappeared with a snub-nosed shiny revolver. "Now, let me ask that question again."  
  
Wildcat raised his voice a little, watching as the second CIA man drew his firearm. "You think walking in here with a GUN is going get you what you want, Colonel ..."  
  
Wildcat didn't get a chance to finish. The bathroom door burst open, and The Sandman blazed through. The shock of seeing a man in a green suit and orange fedora hat and wearing a gas mask caused the two government men to freeze.  
  
"Nighty-night," Sandman said with a smile in his voice as a green gas cloud was emitted from his gas gun.  
  
"Aw, shit," Flagg growled as he passed out to the floor. Benson collapsed next to him.  
  
Behind the gas mask, Sandman grinned. "How'd you know?"  
  
***  
  
The phone rang, and Ted Grant opened his eyes, watching Bruce Wayne. "Yes, put her through ... Diana? Bruce, here ... yes ... yes, some trouble. With the police. I need you to --" There was a long pause. Bruce's face turned colors, Grant thought. "A what?" Bruce nodded into the phone. "Wait a minute." Then he cupped his palm over the receiver. "Colonel Flagg tracked us to Greece. He's got the Greek government out after Batman, just Batman. Some kind of warrant for attempted murder," Bruce whispered to the room.  
  
"Attempted murder!" Wesley Dodds repeated. "All we did was take his clothes and his gun and all the drapes off the windows and covers off the bed and lock him and the other guy in Catwoman's hotel room when we left Austria."  
  
Rex Tyler laughed.  
  
"Well, you know," Ted Grant grinned. "Some guys get pissed off at little things."  
  
Bruce shrugged and turned back to the phone. "Yes, I figured it was something like that. You've got to get the heat off me, Diana. Catwoman thinks she's got something on this Blaze Fields that can lead us to her, maybe then to False-Face. I can't sit around in the Athens jail just because Colonel Flagg wants my scalp ... right ... I know ... but work a miracle anyway and then send some more help here to Athens right away because we're going to need it probably ... I know ... I know that most of the other members are working their own cases ... I know that, too ... Yes ... I'll leave word through the usual channels on where you can find us. We're all staying at different hotels ... Right ... all right ... And do what you can to call off Flagg, okay? Right. Good-bye," and Bruce hung up.  
  
Bruce Wayne looked at Ted Grant, then at Wesley Dodds, then at Rex Tyler. "Diana should be able to get that warrant, or whatever it is, killed, but it'll take at least a day. And if some policeman spots Batman, I'm --"  
  
"Oh, that should be difficult, how many guys are running around in that kind of an outfit in Athens?" Grant snickered.  
  
"When are we supposed to meet Catwoman at her hotel room?" Rex asked.  
  
"In about an hour," Bruce replied. "She's trying to find out through her underworld contacts which island Blaze Fields makes her headquarters."  
  
"You know," remarked Dodds, "Catwoman's not knowing our real identities is making this real difficult. We have to stay at different hotels and always have to meet at her room."  
  
"Nothing we can do, Wes," Bruce answered. "It's the way we have to do it. She's not exactly one of us."  
  
"She could be," volunteered Rex.  
  
"But she's not," said Ted Grant.  
  
Dodds had a question, "She said her contacts can smuggle us out of Greece?"  
  
"We're going to have to accept on faith that she can do it," Bruce told him.  
  
"I don't think I'm going to like this," Rex Tyler moaned.  
  
***  
  
Batman waited by the gunwales of an old fishing boat. It felt good to be back in his costume. He looked at Wildcat, dressed in his very dark costume. The Sandman looked mysterious and his dark outfit made him appear almost like a shadow. Hourman stood out like a sore thumb. All that yellow in his costume shined like a neon light.  
  
Catwoman, as she did in any clothes, seemed ... like the beautiful jewel thief she was.  
  
Batman had insisted tht she not come, and she had insisted that she would not reveal the location of the island if she did not. He backed down. She was, he told himself, a grown woman who had the right to make her own decisions and risk her own neck. Somehow, the rationalization hadn't eased his fears for her safety.  
  
He, Wildcat, Sandman and Hourman had been smuggled out of Athens in caskets, with Catwoman disguising herself as a Greek widow lamenting the death of her husband and three brothers in a fiery accident. Once the truck had slowed, Batman had thought they had been found out, but then the truck had picked up speed.  
  
The truck carried them to an airfield, and by amphibious aircraft, they had flown down through the Aegean toward Crete, not going quite that far.  
  
The plane had landed on water and they quickly transferred to a fishing boat. It was a smuggling vessel owned by one of Catwoman's European contacts, with nothing outwardly visible that could distinguish it from other vessels that plied the seas. But in secret compartments built into the bowels of the ship were sophisticated radar gear, radio systems, and sonar devices.  
  
Batman, Sandman, Wildcat, Hourman and Catwoman weren't alone on the deck as the dark island gradually became more defined.  
  
With them stood twelve men. What one might call "business associates" of Catwoman's.  
  
Batman slid next to Catwoman and whispered to her in the darkness, "What are you proving by coming along?"  
  
"I don't have to prove anything," she answered. "I'm coming because I wish to come."  
  
"Awful gritty business maybe. Wouldn't you feel better on some rooftop back in Gotham?" he said.  
  
He felt her breath on his ear as she leaned up and whispered beside his left cheek, "I'm wearing silk underwear with handmade lace. I'll survive it."  
  
She was trying to shock him, again, he knew it. But how was he supposed to tell her that he was married?  
  
On the island would be Blaze Fields and perhaps fifty criminals -- Nazis. And maybe -- Batman swallowed hard as he thought of it -- just maybe False- Face.  
  
The throb of the engines stopped beneath his feet.  
  
Catwoman's voice beside him startled him. "Pameh! Pameh!" she ordered.  
  
Her Greek sounded perfect, as it had since they had first departed the plane in Athens. And she had told her men, ordered them, "Let's go!"  
  
A man did a handspring over the rail into the launch and started to work at the pulleys to run it down from the davits into the water.  
  
"Ghreegorah!" It was Catwoman again. And hurry the crew did.  
  
***  
  
He stroked at his beard. That everyone knew it was not a real beard didn't bother him much. He wore it as though it were one. He sat by the yellow lamplight, just listening. The high collared navy-blue turtleneck kept him comfortably warm against the cold breeze blowing in from the ocean.  
  
He thought about the news from Austria.  
  
False-Face didn't like failure.  
  
He watched Blaze Fields, she was addressing a group of men and women who stood around the walls of the room. The room itself was at the top of the tower of the monastery that dominated the center of the island.  
  
"It is imperative that all of you when you leave tonight realize the ultimate importance of his task," she intoned. "The destruction of the existing world order and its replacement with the one true order."  
  
That she spoke in English to these men and women seemed natural enough to False-Face. They were of mixed nationalities. Most of them were Turks, but there were also some Greeks, some Germans, some Austrians, and two Frenchmen. English, however well or poorly it was understood by those assembled at the edge of the lamplight, was the only common bond, besides a belief in the principles of National Socialism and the destiny of mankind.  
  
False-Face sat aloof at the opposite end of the partially roofless structure. There would be another night of sleep with Blaze, another night of being the subject of her desire. At first it had pleased him but now it was wearisome.  
  
"Tonight, the seaplanes shall come and each of you shall be taken to the points for your individual missions," Blaze continued. "Tonight, you link hands with destiny," this last phrase she almost whispered.  
  
Blaze Fields then turned to False-Face. There was a wildness in her eyes that bespoke savagery, a headier lust than she showed even in bed. "False- Face," she cried, "a word for our warriors of the Reich."  
  
False-Face nodded and stood. He smiled. It was one of the moments that would be written in the history books. Perhaps some of these books would recount it as part of the legend.  
  
As False-Face spoke, he established eye contact with each of them for a brief instant. "We stand at the threshold of destiny, which the very evolution of mankind has ordained that only we can fulfill." He felt badly speaking this way before Greek and Turks. Their racial heritage was so mixed. "Each task, however small it may seem, is of vital importance in the framework of our plan. Not all of you will even see one of the nerve gas canisters, and some of you will not live to tell of this hour to your children and your children's children. But we strike the blow, the fatal blow, which is as at once the breath of life and the wind of change. Go forth assured in the knowledge that you are about the business of destiny. And may the spirit of our dead leader live again through you, see again through your eyes, triumph through your deeds." He raised his right hand in the classic salute he had learned as a boy. Heels snapped together as the others raised their right hands as well.  
  
False-Face was slightly amused at himself for becoming emotional. His throat felt a momentary tightness and he sniffed loudly to hold back a tear.  
  
"Destiny," he whispered. The lamplight flickered. It had flickered throughout much of the evening of talk of dreams. But it did not die out.  
  
  
  
To be continued ... 


	8. Chapter 8

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 8  
  
  
  
The clouds parted briefly in the growing wind and shafts of moonlight illuminated the sea and sky. Batman could hear and then see a second plane.  
  
Whatever was on the island, he thought as a third aircraft came into view, the planes were part of it.  
  
"Wildcat, take Sandman and go around to the right, find a path that parallels this one and hang back a little to cover us if we bump into something."  
  
Then his eyes searched out Hourman's black cowled face. "Keep an eye on Catwoman and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble."  
  
"I shall remain at Catwoman's side," the Man of the Hour replied.  
  
Batman nodded, not knowing if Hourman could see him. He started forward, feeling Catwoman close behind him. His brilliant tactical mind thought what he would do if he were Blaze Fields or False-Face and guarding this island. Where would he post sentries? He hoped he would make the right decisions, and reached out for the top of a rough pillar rock.  
  
As if on cue, the clouds broke as Batman peered across the flat top of the rock. The brightness of a full moon bathed the landscape before him. He stared across the central part of the island. Towering columns of rock, silhouetted against the sky, dominated the terrain. They provided a natural fortification. High on a flat promontory, rose a flat-topped mountain of rock. Perched upon it was a collection of half-ruined walls and buildings. He knew that on the far side of the mesa was a course down to the sea. Another aircraft flew overhead. It was dropping in altitude, and in the brightness of the moonlight, he could see pontoons beneath the fuselage. A seaplane.  
  
He turned to Catwoman. "Looks like either fresh personnel coming in or whoever's here going out," he said.  
  
"It is well to remember," Hourman murmured, "that the fishing boat may have been seen from the air. Our arrival may be at least partially anticipated."  
  
"Good thought, but I hope you're wrong," Batman nodded in the darkness. "We'll keep working our way toward the ruins, link up with Wildcat and Sandman and play it by ear. Keep as quiet as you can. Don't bunch together. If there's a sentry that needs putting away, I'll take care of it. The less notice they have that we're coming, the better off we'll be and the less distance we'll have to cover once the fighting starts. So, any questions? Everyone understand?"  
  
Catwoman and Hourman did.  
  
He shrugged, turned away and started ahead. The blanket of cloud folded back to cover the moon. Just the way Batman liked it.  
  
***  
  
Wildcat tucked down into the shadow of the rocks. Two men stood less than fifty yards away, their bodies and their weapons, submachine guns, profiled against the dull light diffused through the cloud cover. The moon had just disappeared. For the few moments it had been wholly visible, Wildcat had thought that reaching the two sentries would be impossible.  
  
He signaled to Sandman, who was beside him. The masked vigilante gestured toward the two men, then silently withdrew his gas gun.  
  
Wildcat looked at the weapon, then nodded.  
  
Gesturing to Sandman, Wildcat started forward.  
  
He let The Sandman move slightly ahead.  
  
His palms sweated inside the gloves.  
  
He moved ahead, in a low, fast crouch.  
  
Sandman stopped, paused, then sprang forward, attacking from the shadows. He was on the guard on the right, his gas gun spewing its cloud of knockout gas.  
  
The other man turned and raised his submachine gun.  
  
Wildcat hurtled himself forward, his left fist hammering out across the subgunner's jaw. He heard the sound of teeth breaking. The guard fell back, and Wildcat hit him with a left backhand. The man, stumbling, started to turn on him. His body rocked as Wildcat's left fist connected, followed by a right to the middle of his face. Wildcat could feel the nose crush under his knuckles.  
  
The subgunner's body crumpled to the dirt.  
  
The Sandman approached the man laying unconscious and proceeded to spray knockout gas into his face to insure that the man would be out of commission for a long number of hours.  
  
Wildcat looked to Sandman.  
  
They then started to drag the two unconscious bodies away to hide them from sight.  
  
The target was the ruined monastery at the center of the island. Towers of rock formed a natural wall on three sides of it.  
  
Before attacking the sentries, Wildcat had seen lights in the monastery, one a dimly glowing yellow light.  
  
Overhead, there was the sound of another aircraft.  
  
"Oh, boy," Sandman groaned.  
  
Wildcat dumped the body, then kept going with The Sandman.  
  
***  
  
Ahead of him, Batman could make out three sentries, armed with submachine guns. With Hourman, the Caped Crusader moved toward the three men through the darkness. Though ordered to stay back, Catwoman trailed closely behind anyway. Immediately beyond them was the nearest of the pillars of rock, and beyond that the ruined monastery.  
  
Catwoman kept moving, timing herself with Batman and Hourman.  
  
She stopped, waiting in the shadows. The three guards were talking in heavily accented English.  
  
"That False-Face -- he is a strange one I think," said the tallest of the three.  
  
Another voice added, "First he is a Greek religious man," the accent French, "and now that beard and the wig. I wonder if Blaze knows his face when she sleeps with him."  
  
A third guard, this one short and stocky, spoke up in an accent that was hard to define and heavy, "You betcha she knows somethin' else, you betcha. She sleeps with False-Face every night. Whatever he got she knows it good."  
  
"Ha," the tall one laughed.  
  
The stocky guard spoke again, "The assignment you were given, where do you go from here?"  
  
"We're not supposed to tell of this," the Frenchman answered. "But to Paris -- there is one of the canisters there, I think."  
  
Batman started forward, flanked by Hourman and Catwoman.  
  
Suddenly the Masked Manhunter stopped. One of the men who had been sitting on a rock started to stand, and standing would make him face the direction from which Batman and the others came.  
  
It was now or never.  
  
Gotham City's masked vigilante ran forward just as the one with the French accent, Batman's target of the three, turned around.  
  
The Caped Crusader launched himself toward the man and, in one quick motion, looped his arm around the man's neck. There was the beginning of a cry as Batman twisted his own body hard left and turned the man's neck. He felt the weight, then suddenly the weight was slipping away.  
  
Batman lowered the unconscious body to the ground.  
  
He threw himself toward the second of the three sentries, who was locked in combat with Catwoman. Catwoman went down, her cat-o-nine-tails clattering to the rocks, and the sentry raised his submachine gun to fire.  
  
The Masked Manhunter's body hurled into the sentry, and he hauled the man down. The heel of his left hand hammered out and up, into the man's face. The man dropped like a bag of cement, unconscious.  
  
The third man, Hourman's target, was on the ground. He would be asleep for a long while.  
  
Batman rushed to Catwoman's side. "Are you all right?" His voice was a low whisper in the darkness.  
  
"Things have been better," she whispered back. "I'd rather be in bed, actually."  
  
The Dark Knight from Gotham stared toward the monastery beyond the pillars of rock, then dropped into a crouch in the shadows, signaling the others to do the same.  
  
"There could be more sentries anywhere among these rock pillars," he whispered. "Stupid for all of us to go on together."  
  
Batman looked hard at Hourman. "Stay with Catwoman and run things here," he said. "Give me a five-minute start. In five minutes, I'll meet you at the entrance to the monastery."  
  
"Catwoman," he continued, "take off at a right angle and intercept Wildcat and Sandman. Go with them and cover the back door of the monastery. The three of you can start to penetrate the monastery from that end. Tell Wildcat and Sandman to start the attack at eleven-fifteen, unless they need to sooner. Go."  
  
After Catwoman left to fulfill her part of the operation, Batman started into the darkness between the nearest of the stone pillars.  
  
***  
  
Batman discovered just one sentry in the area between the pillars of rock and the base of the mesa that supported the monastery. The Caped Crusader removed him by knocking him unconscious.  
  
Batman ran as silently as he could on the gravel and dirt surface, toward a bank of rough-hewn stone steps that edged their way up the perpendicular side of the mesa. Evidently they were carved by the orginal inhabitants of the monastery hundreds of years before.  
  
His body hugged the wall of the mesa and he took the narrow, treacherous steps one at a time.  
  
Suddenly, he froze. Footsteps shuffled on the steps ahead of him, and he sniffed the acrid smell of cigarette smoke.  
  
His eyes flickered to his gloved right hand. Batman squeezed himself even further into the rock and waited.  
  
The footsteps grew louder, the smell of cigarette smoke stronger. A tall, well-muscled man, a cigarette cupped in his right hand, was on top of him almost before he realized. Batman's right fist slammed into the man's jaw. But he felt his knuckles deflect as the man's head instinctively recoiled.  
  
Batman's right knee smashed up for the groin, glanced off the metal of a submachine gun, and hammered the man in the crotch with almost full force.  
  
As the man doubled forward, Batman's left crossed his jaw and he went down heavily.  
  
Batman caught the body as it started to slip away, and dragged the unconscious man beside the wall. The masked crimefighter reached for a pair of Batcuffs in his utility belt and then proceeded to cuff the man's hands behind his back.  
  
In the man's right front pocket was a handkerchief, Batman pulled it out, and stuffed it into the man's mouth. He ripped the victim's belt from his blue jeans and bound his ankles. He reached down to the shoes, pulled out one of the laces and used it to secure the gag.  
  
He started up the stone steps again with all his senses alert for what may lay ahead.  
  
***  
  
False-Face looked at Blaze Fields, her face close to his chest, her breath hot on his skin. The warmth of the covers made him feel lazy, tired.  
  
"I love you, F.F.," she whispered to him.  
  
"Love me?" he replied. "Whatever would you love me for?"  
  
"You are brave, strong -- you are kind to me in bed. It is something I feel, F.F."  
  
"You are sweet to say those things to me," he told her. "But until this is all over, darling, we both know ..." He let the rest of his thoughts hang on the cool air around them.  
  
He glanced at the wristwatch he wore. It was nearly eleven-fifteen. "All the planes will be landed soon, one more should be coming in. I need to get going now."  
  
"But ..." she stammered.  
  
"The pilots will need their briefings and they must adhere to their departure schedules," he said.  
  
"Can't we once more, then -- quickly, please?"  
  
With his fingertips, he began to stroke her. She moaned softly, whispering, "After this, and The Boomer's work in America, when can we ...?"  
  
"The final step will come soon," he told her. "Perhaps then. But there will be much work for us both, Blaze."  
  
He rolled over on her, and slipped between her thighs. She whispered, "Your face, I must see it, must know it!" And before he could stop her, her hands flashed upward and he felt the tearing of his flesh as she ripped at the beard glued to his face and tore away the wig, the tape ripping at his own hair.  
  
"F.F.," she gasped.  
  
He fell forward against her, his hands closing about her throat. With what he felt was actually sincerity, he whispered to her as he closed his hands, "I'm sorry darling -- good-bye, Blaze."  
  
False-Face's thumbs pressed over her larynx, crushing it as she coughed the words, "I love you."  
  
The false beard was ripped irreparably, and he stood naked in the cold darkness of the room, trying to think. The briefing of the pilots had to be made before the men and women assembled to board the seaplanes could overhear his instructions. His instructions were simple but vital. "In the event of detection, bail out and crash the plane into the sea." The sound of his own voice in the stillness shocked him.  
  
He walked back to the bed, and sat down. What little moonlight came through the partially shuttered window reflected from Blaze's open eyes. He thumbed them closed.  
  
  
  
To be continued ...  
  
  
  
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JSA COMMENTS ...  
  
The following review was submitted to: JSA: If Looks Could Kill Chapter: 7  
  
From: Nightw2  
  
"I FINALLY get to post a review for this story (I'm not going to go into the problems I've had with review posting on my computer). I wanted to wait until you were done, but I couldn't resist. I absolutely LOVE your use of Catwoman in this story and there is so much great action in this story. I'm very eager to see what's next. Keep up the great work."  
  
From Bruce Wayne:  
  
Thank you, as always, for your very kind words. During most of 2002, I had the honor of playing the part of Batman in the Gotham After Dark RPG. For the most part, the RPG made me write a "Batman-post" once a day. It also gave me the opportunity to write and interact with probably the ultimate Catwoman fan-fiction writer on the internet today -- Chris Dee. I know I picked up a lot of what Batman and Catwoman's personality is supposed to be from Chris. You can find all of her Cat-Tales work in the Batman section of FFN.  
  
I hope to write a Batman adventure in the near future. It will be a modern story that will allow me to use all the year 2003 toys the Dark Knight has at his disposal. With this JSA story taking place in 1961, I purposely shy away from Batman and his technical toys and rely more on brainpower and fists.  
  
My writing forte is action/adventure. In real life I'm probably best described as a technical writer. Tom Clancy, my favorite author, is a technical writer. I write action and don't deal with the feelings of my characters as much as other writers. Action, they say, is difficult to write. Luckily, I seem to be able to get it across on the computer screen and I hope most readers enjoy it.  
  
Catwoman is going to play a large part in this particular JSA story. Originally, I had planned to have Batwoman take a bigger part, but as I write this, I just see Catwoman taking the job. Her character is too good and there are several directions I can go with her in this story. As they used to say on the 1966 Batman TV show cliffhangers -- "Stay tuned ... the worst (best) is yet to come!" 


	9. Chapter 9

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 9  
  
  
  
With Sandman beside him on the other side of the rear opening into the rock- walled monastery, Wildcat stood and waited, straddling the body of an unconscious sentry that The Sandman had gassed with his gas gun.  
  
Sandman glanced down at his watch. It was nearly eleven-fifteen and yet there had been no sounds of battle, no gunfire from inside the monastery walls or beyond on the far side where Batman and Hourman would make their approach.  
  
At eleven-fifteen they were supposed to enter the building, two minutes from now.  
  
"You ready?" The Sandman asked.  
  
Wildcat nodded and licked his lips.  
  
At precisely eleven-fifteen, they started through the entranceway.  
  
***  
  
Batman climbed and got nearly to the top of the winding stone steps of the monastery. He stopped at eye level with the base of the arched opening through the monastery wall. He could see men and women were moving away from him. Gunfire was visible in bright flashes from the far side of the wall. Someone apparently had spotted Wildcat and Sandman.  
  
A man ran past the steps, not looking toward Batman. The Caped Crusader's fist rammed into the man's rib cage. Batman hit the man twice more, and the body fell away.  
  
While the attention of the occupants of the monastery was focused on Wildcat and Sandman toward the rear of the building, Batman moved through the front and began sneaking up behind the evildoers and putting them down.  
  
A man charged at Batman from the shadows of the wall and the masked crimefighter snapped his foot into the center of the man's face. He felt the facial bones collapse beneath the blow and the man sunk away.  
  
Batman began to move quicker toward his colleagues' position.  
  
If False-Face were there, he would be inside the monastery building itself. And if not, at least Blaze Fields would be there. And she would have the information he needed. Batman could feel it inside him.  
  
Either way, he had to search the monastery building.  
  
Batman continued to move through the shadows.  
  
***  
  
"Blaze, what should we do?" shouted one of the men from below the gallery overlooking the ground floor.  
  
"Fight to the death if you must," came the voice from above, "as many of you as possible must reach the planes. Kill the invaders. False-Face has charged us with this duty!"  
  
"To the death," a Frenchman shouted. But False-Face reflected that Frenchmen were always slightly on the dramatic side. It was part of the national heritage, he supposed. He stepped back from the balcony, swathed in Blaze's robe and shawl. He had her voice down perfectly. It was something he unconsciously did with people, learning to imitate them. Unfortunately, it was as far as the impersonation could go for the moment, and he turned from the mezzanine overlooking the chapel and ran back down the hallway, bursting through the curtained doorway and into the room he had shared with Blaze.  
  
There was no way to repair the bearded image he had affected before. The torn wig was all but ruined. Hurriedly, he threw off the shawl that covered his hair and his face and started for the battered dresser, that Blaze had used for some of her things. He hoped she had a wig.  
  
For a moment, he caught sight of his own face in the mirror. The high cheekbones and abrupt, demanding jawline only drew attention to the eyes, which burned with ferocity.  
  
It was a face he rarely saw.  
  
Blaze would have makeup, but only simple things a woman used. Aside from too much lipstick, she wore little makeup -- had worn little makeup, he corrected.  
  
He turned and glanced at her naked body on the bed. He felt nothing.  
  
He looked back to the top drawer of the dresser, but found only underwear and some perfume. He slammed the drawer shut, and continued through the second drawer, then the one beneath it.  
  
"Aha!" he exclaimed. He removed the garments, and held up to view a loose- looking red-velour pants outfit, with a high neckline and knitted cuffs, waistband and ankles. It would fit.  
  
From the drawer above, he took a bra and then took more of the underwear to use as padding for a fake bustline.  
  
"Hair," he muttered. He returned to Blaze's body and roughly rolled her over. He caught up her hair from the nape of the neck. With a shawl, the hair could be used to construct the appearance of real hair beneath it. Blaze's eye color was close to his.  
  
"It will work," he said confidently. He took a switchblade from the hip pocket of his jeans and hacked the hair from the back of her head.  
  
He still had the gum he had used to secure the beard, and there was more wigtape.  
  
Quickly, he stripped away his own clothing.  
  
He kept his legs and chest shaved smooth, and set about crafting the disguise. He expected that the assault force in the monastery courtyard, whatever its composition, would wait approximately ten minutes before penetrating the interior of the monastery.  
  
That would be time enough for a fast change of identities and escape with the help of Blaze's loyal personnel. And when Blaze's body was found, total confusion would overtake his enemies.  
  
"Confusion to my enemies," he laughed, carefully starting to dress.  
  
He studied his image in the mirror. The makeup had appeared to lower his cheekbones and lightened his skin tones. With the shawl in place, what little of the spirit-gummed hair that was visible seemed to show Blaze's hair in slight disarray, as would be expected.  
  
He stepped back from the mirror.  
  
The red outfit was tight but satisfactory.  
  
He grabbed Blaze's purse, taking money, identification and other useful items in quick inventory, then added his own few possessions inside it as well.  
  
He would leave his pistol behind. There wasn't room for it in the purse. Instead, he took Blaze's semiautomatic handgun.  
  
She had spare magazines. He left these in the purse.  
  
He started for the doorway, and gave a last look to Blaze on the bed. The gunfire raged outside and below.  
  
"I look better as you than you did, darling," he said, laughing, then stepped through the curtained doorway. The voice with which he had spoken was her voice.  
  
And now she was he.  
  
***  
  
False-Face picked his way down a wooden staircase in the semi-darkness. A fire burned in the courtyard where an incendiary device had ignited the gasoline that fuelled the generator system. The beacon on the far side of the monastery needed electric lights for guiding the seaplanes to their landing spot.  
  
It was this side of the monastery to which he now ran.  
  
To his left he heard a voice. "Blaze, the power boat is ready for you, and one of our pilots awaits with his engine running. We can get you to safety."  
  
False-Face turned around, his face swathed with the scarf. In Blaze's voice, he answered, "Very good, Franz -- then we must hurry. And the men?"  
  
"They fight well, but it appears the attackers have entered the monastery. They are wearing odd costumes of some sort and have no apparent weapons -- but our men seem to be going down all the same. We must use the hidden staircase to the sea."  
  
"Hidden staircase?" False-Face repeated in a muffled whisper. His thoughts turned to Blaze and he felt himself smile. She had held out one secret from him after all. A hidden escape route. He wondered how many other secrets went to the grave with her.  
  
"Lead the way, Franz," he answered in Blaze's voice. Franz ran past him, and gave him a gentle love pat on his left shoulder.  
  
Keeping his knees closer together than he normally would have and kicking out his heels, False-Face ran. Blaze's run, he thought.  
  
For an instant, as he followed Franz around a twist in the corridor and up a narrow ramp, he wondered if somewhere along the way he had lost sight completely of his own identity. He had only been known as "False-Face" for so long he wondered if he felt more natural in someone else's life, with someone else's visage.  
  
He ran on, the passage taking a turn, the ramp turning sharply downward.  
  
And faintly, very faintly as he ran, he could smell the sea and feel the cold air blowing in off the water.  
  
He smiled again. He knew that victory waited out there for him to lay his claim.  
  
The word "insane" flitted across his mind, but he dismissed it.  
  
***  
  
Batman had boxed himself in just inside the entrance to the monastery itself. Heavy fire from assault rifles and submachine guns came at him like hail from a portico cut into the wall beneath a balcony-like mezzanine that hung over what had obviously been a chapel at one time.  
  
It was a holding action, Batman realized, and an effective one.  
  
Wildcat, Sandman, Hourman and Catwoman raced through the doorway and into the chapel. Hourman was carrying a small wooden crate under one arm.  
  
Batman shouted a warning to them across the stone room, "Here -- look out for the portico under the mezzanine!"  
  
A fusilade of automatic-weapons fire poured from the portico under the balcony, sending stone chips flying from the floor like shrapnel.  
  
Batman dropped to his knees, still in motion and slid across the floor toward Catwoman. He pushed her down and shielded her body with his own.  
  
The Caped Crusader shouted to his three male colleagues. "Come on, I've got Catwoman!"  
  
Catwoman got to her feet and together with Batman, they moved their way to safety.  
  
Batman brought her down beside a flight of low steps on the far right hand side of the entrance and pushed her against the stone. Wildcat, Sandman, and Hourman made their runs for cover.  
  
Wildcat moved faster than Hourman and Sandman. Outdistancing the other two crimefighters, he skidded down beside Batman. "Jeez, how many of 'em are there?" he exclaimed.  
  
"I don't know," Batman answered as Hourman and Sandman finished their run and dropped into a low crouch beside Catwoman. Hourman kept his speed down in order to help Sandman.  
  
"We must eliminate the fire from the portico if we are to penetrate the monastery. I estimate we are outnumbered four to one," Hourman chimed in.  
  
"Encouraging talk like that'll spoil me," Wildcat grinned.  
  
"I nearly tripped over this wooden crate while trying to get here as fast as I could," said Hourman as he opened the box he had carried.  
  
"Hot damn," Wildcat exclaimed. The box was filled with fragmentation grenades, and from the faded color he guessed they might be World War II vintage.  
  
"Those things still work?" Sandman asked incredulously.  
  
Hourman glanced at The Sandman and smiled, "I shouldn't care to withdraw the pin, release the handle, and sit with one on my lap, Sandman."  
  
Wildcat reached into the box and snatched up one of the grenades. He pulled the safety pin and glanced toward the portico, then toward Hourman, Sandman and Batman. "Watcha say the four of us guys try to impress the lady here -- see who's the best pitcher, huh?"  
  
Sandman laughed, and grabbed up a grenade.  
  
Emotionlessly, Batman took one of the grenades.  
  
Hourman then grabbed one.  
  
Catwoman took a fifth grenade. "I'm a liberated woman," she retorted. "I can throw a grenade as well as any of you."  
  
Wildcat started to smile, then broke into a grin. "All right, everybody pull your pins, then when I say so, throw 'em." Sandman, Batman, Hourman, then Catwoman pulled the safety pins in the grenades.  
  
Batman eyed the portico. There were at least ten of the enemy force up there, firing down.  
  
"Count of three," Wildcat murmured. "One ... two ... THREE!" Wildcat's right arm hauled back then snapped forward, his hand letting loose the grenade. His eyes caught dark blurs of motion as the other four grenades were tossed.  
  
Batman threw himself over Catwoman, half to protect her and half because he liked to touch her.  
  
The five grenades detonated almost simultaneously with a thundering roar. Batman's ears were ringing as fragments of rock and centuries of dust rained down on them. He gripped Catwoman tightly.  
  
When the deadly ragged-edged chunks of stone had stopped flying, Batman looked up. The hole beneath the mezzanine balcony that had been the portico was a mass of rock-strewn rubble, and all the firing from the portico had ceased.  
  
Batman was up in an instant, springing onto the stone steps. Across the monastery confines he shouted, "Hurry! Hurry!"  
  
He ran up the steps toward the mezzanine where there was a concentration of criminal gunmen. Off to his right he heard the sound of more grenades exploding against the far section of the monastery confines. Somewhere behind him Wildcat shouted, "Batman, heads up, grenade." The Masked Manhunter threw himself against the wall.  
  
"Be more specific, Wildcat," Batman said to his teammate as he wheeled around.  
  
Wildcat tossed one of the grenades to Batman. The Caped Crusader caught it with his right hand.  
  
Wildcat had a target. He looked at the grenade in his right fist and then looked to Batman.  
  
Wildcat raised the grenade toward his mouth and wrenched at the pin with his teeth. He'd always wanted to try it, ever since he had seen John Wayne do it in the movies. "Ouch -- shit!" he yelled. He'd almost broken his right canine. But the pin was out, and he hauled back his hand, tossed and shouted, "Duck, Batman!"  
  
Batman felt the concussion, then shifted his grenade to his right fist. He pulled the pin with the fingers of his left hand and threw the grenade toward a cluster of six men with rifles at the far end of the mezzanine.  
  
An explosion flashed, and debris poured down. As the dust settled enough to see through, he realized all six men had fled.  
  
"Hurry!" he shouted to his colleagues. Everyone jumped and followed Batman as he ran forward, the gunfire from the enemy positions throughout the stone monastery lighter now, more sporadic.  
  
Catwoman was beside him while Batman took out two dazed criminals who were trying to take aim at them from close range.  
  
A corridor ran off the far side of the mezzanine, and Batman started toward it.  
  
More rifle fire blazed from the far end of the corridor, and Batman slammed against the wall at the corner feeding into the hallway. He dragged Catwoman in beside him and shouted to Hourman, "You take Catwoman back the way we came. Cut back through the courtyard. Wildcat, Sandman and I will fight our way through the corridor here and we can link up, maybe catch some of them between us."  
  
"Agreed, Batman," Hourman nodded. Then he reached into the wooden crate that he carried under his arm. He tossed two grenades to each of his fellow crimefighters. Looking at Catwoman, he said, "Come, woman."  
  
Wildcat licked his lips. They were dry, but his palms were wet with sweat inside his gloves.  
  
Sandman returned from a little recon that he had carried out and reported, "All we've got left are two more guys and they're holding the far side of the mezzanine beside the steps."  
  
Batman glanced at his teammate and nodded.  
  
"You realize, Batman," The Sandman said, "if we had just brought along someone like Green Lantern or Dr Fate we wouldn't had been tied down like this with fifty thugs trying to use us as target practice."  
  
"Are you saying this wasn't such a hot plan?" the Caped Crusader sneered.  
  
"If the shoe fit ..."  
  
"Not now!" Wildcat interrupted. "We've done the best we can. We're winning. It's just taking us longer than we thought, that's all."  
  
"Wonderful," Sandman nodded. He checked his gas gun to make sure it was ready.  
  
Batman reached into his utility belt and pulled out what looked to be a small test-tube made out of glass.  
  
"What's that?" Wildcat asked.  
  
"Smoke screen," the Masked Manhunter replied. "I'll throw this over toward the mezzanine and Sandman can rush in and gas the two obstacles."  
  
Through the gas mask, The Sandman's muffled voice sounded like it had an amused tone to it. "Sounds like a plan to me."  
  
Batman nodded. He then looked toward where he needed to throw his smoke bomb. One of the thugs looked over a pew. Batman then lobbed the glass tube to where he saw the man's head.  
  
Smoke immediately began to fill a large portion of the area where the last two sentries were.  
  
The Sandman darted around the corner and into the corridor. Under the cover of smoke, Sandman depressed the trigger of his gas gun. Knockout gas sprayed out.  
  
It took about a minute for the smoke to finally lift somewhat so the crimefighters could see that The Sandman's knockout gas did the job. The bodies of two unconscious men were laid on the stone floor.  
  
Batman and Wildcat joined The Sandman in the corridor. Dotting both sides of the corridor were openings, perhaps at one time cells for the monks who had lived in the monastery. Looking to Wildcat, he instructed, "You and Sandman hit the far end of the corridor, there's a ramp there. See where it leads. I'll check these rooms and keep an eye on your backs."  
  
Wildcat nodded. He then looked to Sandman. "Ready, buddy?"  
  
The Sandman nodded and they both ran off toward the end of the corridor.  
  
Batman moved along slowly, and stopped at the first opening. A curtain covered it. He reached around from the side of the opening and ripped at the curtain, tearing it half away from where the nails held it in place in the surrounding framework. There was no gunfire, no sound from inside.  
  
Cautiously, he stepped inside. His eyes swept the room and eventually fell upon the bed. He started forward. A naked woman lay face down on the bed, a hint of blueness in the veins in her neck. She wasn't moving.  
  
Batman rolled the body over onto its back, noticing that all the hair from the top of the head and the back of the neck was gone, apparently cut away.  
  
The woman was very obviously dead -- strangled, he knew, from the marks over the center of her throat.  
  
"Hair," Batman whispered. He looked about the room. Drawers in a battered chest were half open, and women's clothing and undergarments fell from them. A few pieces of clothing lay on the floor.  
  
He left the bedside and walked toward the chest. There was a wooden-framed mirror on it, more than big enough for a woman to use to apply makeup. A few open jars littered the top of the chest. He picked one up. It was some type of blusher, a brand of cosmetics he didn't recognize. An eyebrow pencil with the cap off, and an open tube of mascara were scattered around. He pulled off his right gauntlet and touched the mascara brush. It was wet.  
  
Batman walked back across the room and felt at the woman's closed eyelids.  
  
The eyelashes had no mascara.  
  
The hair. The clothes. The makeup.  
  
"My, God!" Batman shouted. "False-Face is Blaze now."  
  
He ran from the room. False-Face was still on the island. He had to be, the Dark Knight told himself.  
  
***  
  
As she jumped over the unconscious body of one of the thugs, she felt the touch of Hourman's hand at her left elbow.  
  
"Catwoman," he said, running beside her into the empty courtyard. "I will take you to a safe place. There are still ..."  
  
"We have to cut off the escape route from the far side of the courtyard," she interrupted. "Batman was right. It's the only way to get a line on the gas canisters."  
  
"But Catwoman," came the stern reply. Suddenly she felt him grab at her left shoulder and pull her back, binding her behind him with his powerful left arm.  
  
Two men had rushed at them and the two men went down quickly after Hourman took care of them.  
  
He turned to her. "It is not ..." he started.  
  
"Safe -- I know," she said, then started to run again, feeling slightly breathless. Fighting temporarily for the side of goodness and light amused her.  
  
She ran ahead to the far side of the courtyard. A quick backward glance told her Hourman was knocking down two more opponents.  
  
Catwoman slowed and let Hourman go first into the exit that led out of the courtyard. She knew he could better handle what might be waiting there than she could.  
  
When it came, it came so fast, she didn't realize it was happening at all. A burst of gunfire flashed from above the monastery and Hourman's body crumpled to the floor. He had been hit in the shoulder and side.  
  
Ignoring the danger, she ran to Hourman's side, shielding him with her body.  
  
She raised his head. "Catwoman ... I ..." Hourman faltered, and his eyes closed.  
  
Catwoman swallowed hard, feeling at the neck for a pulse. He was alive, but quickly going into shock. Her hands were covered with blood as she moved them from his back. Large swaths of crimson began to stain his yellow and black costume.  
  
She looked up to the parapets of the monastery. Silhouetted in the moonlight, she could see one man and a woman running. She watched their path down a track so rugged a mountain goat would have trouble traversing it. She guessed it led to the sea, toward the rear of the monastery behind the pillars of rock.  
  
Catwoman tried to decide what was the best course of action. Should she stay here and take care of Hourman? Should she leave and try to find Batman? Should she pursue the two figures running toward the sea? She felt an obligation to the four vigilantes because they had continously tried to keep her out of harm's way. And now Hourman had virtually sacrificed himself to protect her.  
  
She stood up. "I'm going after them," she said into the night air, her face set and her eyes flashing with revenge. "I'm going after them," she repeated.  
  
In her mind, Catwoman knew the fleeing woman was Blaze Fields, the one they had came after. And the man may be False-Face. She hoped Batman or one of the others would come and help Hourman soon.  
  
But Catwoman's mind was made up. She started to walk forward, breaking into a run after a few steps. She could cut across the rugged terrain and through the stone towers, then down to the sea.  
  
She owed Hourman nothing less ...  
  
***  
  
She waited in the shadows of the rocks. Fire was visible in splotches of dark orange trailing skyward from the monastery, she didn't know the origins. She heard no gunfire, only the roar of the surf, the lapping of the waves and the throbbing of the seaplane's engine perhaps a hundred yards out. There was a launch waiting in the cove, waiting for the single man and the woman who accompanied him down through the rocks as she watched. For a moment, she thought of Hourman, and wondered whether Batman and the others had been able to find Hourman and if they would be able to get him to a doctor. Would Batman leave the island without her? She hoped that he would.  
  
"Batman," she whispered, barely moving her lips in the darkness. It was strange that she should love such a man. He was essentially a policeman. He had been the guardian of Gotham City for a such a long time, tracking members of one of the greatest rogue's galleries any costumed crimefighter could have -- including her.  
  
And now for this Justice Society of America, Batman was chasing potentially the greatest murderer in history, False-Face, the neo-Nazi, the master of disguise, whose real face no one knew.  
  
"And his bitch," she murmured, watching Blaze as she stepped from the cover of the rocks. She was wearing a red high-fashion pants outfit, and a shawl partially obscured her face.  
  
She was a tall woman, but moved gracefully.  
  
Catwoman held her breath, and waited.  
  
The man had straight blond hair, and there was a very Germanic look about him. Perhaps it was False-Face in another clever disguise. Maybe that was his real face -- if it were False-Face.  
  
Catwoman stepped from the shadows, snapping her whip, screaming at the man with the rifle as she ripped his face with the leather. "For Hourman, you bastard!"  
  
The man's body crumpled to the rocks inches from Blaze's feet.  
  
Before Blaze could move, Catwoman kicked at the man's body and he started to roll down off the steep incline of rocks and into the water. Blaze had moved away as Catwoman had taken care of the man. Catwoman, with her whip still in her hand, then shifted her attention to Blaze. "I'd love to kill you," she said to the woman in the shawl. There was now about twenty yards seperating them. "Stay perfectly still and you stay alive."  
  
"Yes -- I will," came the soft reply.  
  
Catwoman walked slowly, cautiously picking her way over the rocks, keeping her whip ready.  
  
Five yards from Blaze, she stopped. "Now drop your purse to the rocks," she ordered.  
  
Blaze obeyed.  
  
"Now, very slowly, turn around. Remember -- any sudden movement and your face will be scarred for a very long time, even the littlest thing," cautioned Catwoman. She almost wished Blaze would move, would give her an excuse to lash out with the whip. But she knew Blaze might be their only link to False-Face.  
  
Blaze slowly turned. Catwoman approached to within an arm's length of her, and started to feel her waist for weapons. Suddenly, Blaze moved, faster than Catwoman had thought any woman could move, the right hand sawing through the air, a knife cutting toward the whip.  
  
Catwoman stumbled back, letting herself fall to the rocks, guiding the whip clear of Blaze's quick reflexes. She swung the whip near Blaze's feet.  
  
Blaze froze.  
  
"Try that again and you'll be scarred for life, so help me." Catwoman slowly pushed herself to her feet. "Drop the knife."  
  
Blaze complied.  
  
"Now, if you won't let me search you for weapons, we'll do it another way. Strip," she instructed.  
  
There was a quiver of movement in what she could see of Blaze's face past the folds of the shawl.  
  
Blaze whispered," "Very well, Fraulein Catwoman."  
  
Catwoman felt a smile cross her lips. "First the shawl, so I can see your face."  
  
Blaze's left hand moved slowly, carefully, touching at the shawl with the tips of her fingers. As the shawl was whisked away, Catwoman screamed. The blond hair came away with it.  
  
A man's face was suddenly staring at her, heavily made up with cosmetics.  
  
She took a step closer and saw the set of the eyes.  
  
It had to be False-Face. In a shaft of moonlight that lit the cove, she could see the ragged shape of a scar beneath his left earlobe.  
  
She was suddenly mesmerized by the scar and the whip sagged in her hands for an instant.  
  
There was a blur of motion, and Catwoman felt a sharp pain and then nothing, except the sensation of falling into darkness.  
  
***  
  
Batman moved quickly over the broken ground, barely keeping his footing.  
  
"Selina," he gasped.  
  
The Sandman and Wildcat were back with Hourman, giving basic first aid. The big guy had multiple wounds across his shoulder and side, but Batman's experience with gunshot wounds led him to think that none of them necessarily had to prove fatal.  
  
Beneath him, heading out to sea, was a motor launch. He couldn't see the occupants, but there was a male shape at the wheel. One of the seaplanes was airborne in the distance, and Batman guessed the plane had taken off during the fighting. Now the occupants of the launch were making for the open sea.  
  
On the cove, there was no sign of Catwoman.  
  
Batman started down through the rocks, jumping from one flat piece to another to save a second here, a second there, running where he could.  
  
Looking at the motor launch, it seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then it exploded into a storm cloud of billowing white smoke and then an orange and black fireball.  
  
"Selina! No!" Batman shouted the words and, heard them echo off the rocks of the cove around him. The aircraft was too far out to have picked up anyone from the launch. Maybe she was already aboard the plane, he lied to himself.  
  
He watched the burning wreckage of the launch settle on the otherwise-calm surface of the Aegean.  
  
She was lost to him.  
  
"Selina," he whispered, for the first time truly understanding the full meaning of her name.  
  
  
  
To be continued ... 


	10. Chapter 10

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 10  
  
  
  
Back at the Justice Society of America headquarters in New York City, Batman sat contemplating in his mind the recent events that had taken place. With The Sandman, he had flown Hourman to a hospital on Crete to be operated on by a surgeon that Diana Prince had referred them to. The chief surgeon had veritably leapt at the mention of her name, recognizing Hourman was a friend of hers and personally making the arrangement for emergency surgery.  
  
Before arriving at the hospital, the crimefighters had gotten out of their costumes and helped removed Hourman's.  
  
The out of costume Batman -- calling himself Bob Wang -- had waited there for three hours while bullet fragments were picked from Rex Tyler's muscles and flesh.  
  
Hourman lived.  
  
Batman had left Wildcat on the island to search for Catwoman. Hoping against hope that somehow she had not been aboard the launch.  
  
But when the launch blew up as it was moving out of the cove, it had at least one person on it. Maybe two.  
  
Footprints only small enough for Catwoman's or another woman's had been found in a patch of sand. They also found her whip.  
  
Perhaps Wildcat would work a miracle and find her somehow. He should soon know.  
  
He closed his eyes, not really believing that such a miracle would happen.  
  
He heard a voice, but it wasn't a miracle, only Ted Grant.  
  
He opened his eyes, and turned around. "The doctor must've told you, right?" he asked.  
  
Ted nodded. "Yeah."  
  
"You didn't find any sign of her, right?" Bruce almost had stated rather than asked.  
  
Ted had said nothing for a moment, then sat down beside Bruce. "A guy who was aboard the fishing boat that brought us to the island," he said quietly, haltingly, "is a pretty good diver. At first light, he went down and I guess the island shelves were out pretty far from the cove. The guy said it looked volcanic, the formation. He found part of the ship, the little launch. No bodies, but he found this," and Ted Grant had pulled something out of his pocket. His fist was closed on the table, then he opened it.  
  
In his palm was a silver ladies' wristwatch. It was still ticking, nearly eleven a.m. Encircling the face were tiny diamonds, each stone looking perfect in the dim light that emanated from the room.  
  
Bruce Wayne had looked away from the watch to his friend's face. "That's Selina's watch," he said in a low, hoarse whisper. "I've seen her wear it many times."  
  
***  
  
If Catwoman had been on the boat, only one logical addendum presented itself. If False-Face had been on the island, and only he would have killed Blaze and substituted himself for the dead woman in order to preserve anonymity and effect escape, then False-Face was dead also.  
  
Batman sat in the JSA headquarters trying to analyze all the events that had taken place in the Aegean. He sat there with Wildcat beside him. For the moment, Batman was a wanted man. Colonel Flagg had warrants out for his arrest and Diana Prince had been unable to convince her sources in Washington to squelch them. And if False-Face were dead, ninety-nine canisters of VX nerve gas were out in the world waiting for someone to find them or some irresponsible person to use them. According to current estimates, it would take only a precious few of them, judiciously placed, to precipitate perhaps the end of all human life.  
  
And a woman he had known for several years -- who he apparently had feelings for -- was dead, not even enough of her body to be found to bury or cremate.  
  
He was very tired.  
  
Madmen now ran the asylum called Earth and soon would destroy it, bringing the asylum down around them.  
  
And a woman he may had fallen in love with -- had loved would never be the phrase -- was dead.  
  
***  
  
It was a few hours later.  
  
"You really think this will work?" Batman asked.  
  
Dr Fate looked at the Masked Manhunter from Gotham City. "You only need to trust in the mystical powers, Batman. They know all and see all. My sympathies for the apparent death of Catwoman."  
  
Batman shrugged. "What's with the crystal ball?"  
  
"You wish to know what you didn't see on your mission, do you not?"  
  
"You can do that?"  
  
Behind the gold mask, Dr Fate smiled. "The mystic powers can do many things, Caped Crusader. Gaze into the ball and concentrate. Concentrate on what it is you wish to know."  
  
Batman watched as the glass ball began to change colors. Next he saw a white cloud of smoke seemingly swirl inside. Then, amazingly, images began to form.  
  
"The powers that be followed your progress to the little island where Blaze Fields had her hidaway," Dr Fate began. "The powers watched what transpired. They were powerless to stop it. I want that clear."  
  
"You mean someone watched while Catwoman was killed?" Batman whispered hoarsely.  
  
"Watch," Dr Fate replied.  
  
The Dark Knight saw an image of Catwoman confronting a woman in the crystal ball.  
  
As if he were receiving signals from another source, Dr Fate continued, "Your Catwoman confronted a man and a woman on the beach, incapciatating the man and was disarming the woman. But the woman was not a woman, and the ..."  
  
"Wait a minute ..." Batman tried to interrupt.  
  
"Catwoman was knocked to the ground by someone who could only have been False-Face," stated Dr Fate. "Then False-Face retrieved the body of the man Catwoman had knocked unconscious and hauled him into the power launch. He then set the timer of a bomb."  
  
Batman continued to watch the images unfold in the crystal ball.  
  
As if he were narrating a story, Dr Fate continued with his tale. "False- Face set the launch on a course out of the cove and dived into the water. He got Catwoman to her feet and they moved out beyond the cove toward the other side of the island. Then the launch exploded."  
  
Batman saw the blast again in the ball.  
  
"The plane was airborne as soon as the launch left the cove. I would assume, Batman, that the pilot figured he was no longer going to wait for False-Face or Blaze and he decided to save his own life. But Catwoman appears to be alive and has been taken off by False-Face. And she saw his face. The powers know that. She may still be alive."  
  
"Still be? Don't these powers know for sure? How about where is she?" Batman asked.  
  
"You must seek your own answers, Batman. The powers will only help those who help themselves."  
  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Fate?" Batman exclaimed.  
  
"It means you have work ahead of you."  
  
Batman leaned back in his chair. He listened as Dr Fate continued talking.  
  
"A lot of planes got airborne from the far side of the cove, and it is assumed False-Face was on one of the seaplanes and probably took your Catwoman with him."  
  
Thoughts of Selina, being still alive, and perhaps the captive of False- Face, filled Batman's mind to the point where he couldn't think properly. He forced himself to think unemotionally. After what seemed to be a long moment of silence, the Caped Crusader looked into the gold mask of his fellow crimefighter. "We need to stop False-Face at all costs."  
  
***  
  
The warrants for the arrest of Batman were killed. Colonel Flagg had announced that as he took off his blindfold and entered the room, also announcing that after it was all over he planned to punch out Batman. The heroes in the room snickered at that one. Wildcat had countered by saying Flagg had no sense of humor.  
  
Wildcat sat to Batman's right, at the round conference table in the old mansion located in Queens. Wildcat always felt the old converted home was too elaborate to be comfortable. With at least twenty rooms and decorated like something out of a movie about the right and powerful, the place gave him the creeps.  
  
He looked at the others around the table. Directly opposite him sat The Sandman. Next to him was Dr Fate whose new information had sparked the meeting. Beside him, drawn away as though the JSA were a contagious disease, was Colonel Flagg. At the head of the table sat Dr Mid-Nite.  
  
The rest of the table was empty.  
  
Dr Mid-Nite spoke, "I think, Colonel Flagg, your remarks suggesting physical retribution were a bit uncalled for. I would hazard the guess that under similar circumstances you and the Caped Crusader would have behaved in a similar fashion. And for the moment, at least, the U.S. government has informally agreed to work with the Justice Society of America to stop a terrible threat to the world. What we have, gentlemen," and now Dr Mid-Nite made a sweeping gesture with his hands, encompassing all those who sat at the table, "is the opportunity of foiling False-Face by sheer force of numbers."  
  
Flagg looked at Dr Mid-Nite incredulously. "Numbers?" he snickered. "There's only six of us here. And how come all of you wear masks?"  
  
Dr Mid-Nite ignored the question and continued. "I was in contact earlier today with Hourman. He is recovering from his injuries and hopes to rejoin us in the near future."  
  
"Something happen to that yellow gorilla?" Flagg asked saracastically.  
  
Sandman asked, "Dr Fate, perhaps you have a spell that is able to keep our guest quiet?"  
  
Flagg crossed his arms over his chest and sat back, his mouth now tightly closed. Dr Fate had nothing to do with it.  
  
"Suffice it to say," Dr Mid-Nite continued, "with the law enforcement and intelligence communities watching, we have the world's ports, air terminals and other transportation systems under scrutiny. To perpetrate his foul deeds, False-Face must likely travel, since he seems to prefer a personal touch. Ergo, he'll surface and someone, from whatever source, may spot him."  
  
"You forget, Doctor," Sandman began. "The matter of the face of False-Face. We do not know it. He could be anyone."  
  
"I daresay, you're quite correct, Sandman. He could even be one of us." Dr Mid-Nite smiled.  
  
Wildcat watched Batman. Batman never smiled and he wasn't about to begin now.  
  
***  
  
She realized that she was still alive only because the man the world sought as False-Face hadn't known she had seen the scar. Otherwise, he could not have let her live.  
  
Naked except for the torn and dirty pink silk teddy she had worn under her clothes during the assault on the island, she sat with her legs tucked up on a packing crate, watching the rats move about the floor. It wasn't terribly bad, she reflected. During the daylight hours, a few shafts of light made it possible at least to see in the cargo hold where she was kept. But at night it was a different story. That was when the rats represented terror to her. While she dozed, one of them came at her. She had felt it against the sole of her bare left foot and she screamed. Perhaps because of the scream or her sudden motion, the rat had been frightened away.  
  
She had not slept since, and she judged it as thirty-six hours at least. Her watch had been taken from her at some point between the time False-Face had knocked her out and then forced her along to the other side of the island after reviving her.  
  
False-Face had apparently had his own escape route planned all the while. She had seen the launch explode. He had planted the bomb on the launch the previous day in the event Blaze Fields betrayed him. A small boat had been hidden in an inlet and they had taken the boat out to sea, where one of the seaplanes picked them up. After a short flight, they landed near the dark hulk of what she guessed was either an Albanian or East German freighter. After that, False-Face had stripped off her clothes and locked her away.  
  
There were no toliet facilities except for a galvanized mop bucket and this was changed every eight hours or so. It was her only way of keeping time. It was impossible to keep track by the tiny cracks of light that squeezed through slits in the overhead cargo doors. She knew that the ship was in motion. The rocking had made her nauseated.  
  
She glanced up at the cracks in the doors. The light was nearly gone. Her head buzzed, her eyes stung with fatigue. Another night quickly approached. If she slept, she thought, the rats would come and chew at her flesh.  
  
The side door of the cargo hold opened, and the rats scurried for cover amid the packing crates.  
  
A man, wearing a red cowl, a green tunic and red tights, quickly entered the hold. He was handsome by any standards. On his tunic were the words: "Fair Play."  
  
"I have come to rescue you," the man began, sprinting across the room. "No time to explain," his voice urged. "Hurry, I'll get you out of here." The man handed her a raincoat. She climbed down from the crates and stood up, covering herself with it. "It's all I have for you, I'm afraid, but from the looks of this hole a good hot tub might be in order as soon as I've got you out of here."  
  
"Who are you?" she whispered, wrapping the trench coat around her waist, staring at the man's gray eyes through the cowl. "Where did you come from?" He looked like the hero of a romance novel.  
  
"I'm Mr Terrific. Now, hurry, we've not much time before that guard I took care of might come around and raise an alarm."  
  
"Yes," she whispered, her spirits rising. The man, athletic, tall and wiry, raced across the cargo bay with Selina at his heels.  
  
He flattened himself against the door for a moment, then glanced at her and smiled. "We're nearly there. Come on!" He opened the door just wide enough to squeeze out. She followed him, the metal floor slippery and cold under her bare feet. She noticed his costume. It was expensively cut. He looked perfect for what he was, she thought.  
  
Mr Terrific was at the base of a metal stairway. Selina huddled behind him. "Batman and the JSA have been terribly worried over you," the man said with a warm smile. "It won't be long until you see them again."  
  
"And Hourman?" She asked, hesitating, "did he ...?"  
  
"Last I heard, he was recovering nicely, Catwoman," came the reply. "Now, be quiet while we take the stairs and hopefully nobody has sounded an alarm. Hurry." Mr Terrific started up the steps, two at a time. Selina, holding the handrail, followed.  
  
Fresh air. As she inhaled the salty-smelling breeze, she began to feel faint, but Mr Terrific was at her elbow. "Steady now, Catwoman. We're nearly free of this place."  
  
"What about False-Face?" she asked.  
  
"His whereabouts are known, but no one is moving against him until your safety is assured. Batman himself would have been here, but I was the closest and circumstances wouldn't allow a delay."  
  
She nodded, and moved after him, cautiously, slowly, seeing daylight through the opening to the main deck ahead.  
  
In a hushed tone, her rescuer murmured, "Those villians ... I mean during your confinement ... I hope you weren't, ahh, put into a compromising position, actually."  
  
"No, thank God. They left me alone," said Selina. She shivered as she said it.  
  
And then Mr Terrific stopped, just below deck level, and turned to her. His eyes looked into hers and he asked, "Did you see his face? Could you identify him?"  
  
She thought of the scar, but evaded his question. "When I saw him, he was disguised as a woman named Blaze Fields. I think I saw his real hair color when he pulled away the shawl that covered his head. He was wearing something like a wig, and it didn't look like a real wig. More like he glued the hair into the shawl. But the hair I saw underneath it could have been dyed. The face itself was too heavily made up to recognize."  
  
"Hmmm," he murmured, his lips turning down at the corners of his mouth. "Clever, this False-Face. Damn clever. Come on, and watch your footing." He was through the opening to the deck, Selina moving along slightly behind him.  
  
A helicopter waited on the main deck, its rotor blades moving lazily. "Is that for us?" Selina Kyle whispered.  
  
Mr Terrific turned and looked at her. "I'm afraid not, Fraulein Catwoman. It is for me alone."  
  
Fear gripped her.  
  
The voice had changed to the voice half in drag from the cove, the voice of her jailer. The voice of False-Face.  
  
She threw herself toward him, hammering her fists against his chest. He was sent crumpling to the deck.  
  
But there were hands on her, roughly pulling her back. Seamen from the freighter bound her arms behind her.  
  
She looked at False-Face. The face was still that of Mr Terrific. Makeup and the cowl camouflaged the lightning-bolt-shaped scar beneath the left earlobe. She despised him, hated him.  
  
She snapped her head forward, spitting at him. But she missed and False- Face laughed. She realized she had been beaten again.  
  
She stared down toward the hold. Soon, it would be night. She couldn't stay awake any more. Her body and her mind had been punished enough. She screamed.  
  
"My, you certainly are your namesake aren't you, Catwoman?" he said while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "We're not putting you back into the hold, Fraulein. You're going on a journey. You may prove a useful bargaining tool against the JSA and Batman in particular. I had to be certain you hadn't seen too much of me. I couldn't risk your being able to recognize me. And now I am certain."  
  
"Where are you taking me?" she blurted out.  
  
"I am taking you nowhere, Fraulein. But some of my associates are. I am going behind what the Western democracies call the Iron Curtain. A job needs my personal touch. Just think of it," he said as he leaned toward her, smiling, his face inches from hers. She wanted to spit at him, but her mouth was too dry to attempt it again. "An American nerve gas is released inside a vital area of the Soviet Union. They ..." he started to laugh, "they ... will be at each other's throats. And the stage will be set for the final move -- the grand finale -- one that shall bring both East and West to my feet."  
  
He took a step back and laughed. Then in what was supposed to be the voice of Mr Terrific, he said, "I must dash off, I'm afraid. I have to save the world, you know. But we'll see each other soon, Catwoman."  
  
He turned and walked away. "Bastard!" Selina Kyle screamed at him. Then she felt the tip of the needle against her left upper arm as the raincoat was ripped away by one of the crewmen.  
  
She passed out in somebody's arms.  
  
***  
  
False-Face stepped down out of the helicopter, the wind created by the rotor blades whipping through his hair. It was his own hair, dyed and not a wig. He jogged from the still stirring machine across the concrete airfield. To his right, the desert sun was a blood-red orb sinking on the western horizon.  
  
A small plane sat waiting, the engines already humming with life as he narrowed the distance toward it. Slung from his left shoulder was a leather sack. In his right hand was a matching leather flight bag.  
  
He reached the steps of the plane, not even winded from the two-hundred yard sprint.  
  
He started up the steps with a feeling of triumph. The fools had bought the idea that he would trust his operation to the dregs of the right wing, which Blaze Fields had assembled for him. The security there had been so lax, had they really thought he would be such a dolt?  
  
He stowed his luggage in the small closet just aft of the cockpit, then stepped through the cockpit doorway and addressed the pilot.  
  
"I shall be ready in a moment, please begin takeoff," he commanded.  
  
"Yes, Mr False-Face," the American pilot answered him.  
  
The copilot, looking very European, said nothing.  
  
False-Face returned to the passenger compartment and picked out a seat. A very pretty young woman came forward. "Would you care for a drink, Mr False- Face?" she asked. A slight German accent strayed through her otherwise faultless English.  
  
False-Face replied, "Yes, a gin and tonic would be most refreshing."  
  
He sat in his chair and watched her as she walked down the aisle. The plane was already taxiing. He glanced at the watch on his left wrist. There would be time perhaps, he reflected, and the couch looked large enough for two.  
  
He smiled. The woman would be more refreshing than the gin and tonic. And there would be little time for refreshment in Russia.  
  
  
  
To be continued .... 


	11. Chapter 11

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 11  
  
"What the hell is that?" Colonel Flagg asked.  
  
"It is a portal device that allows us to see distant events and/or places," Dr Fate replied.  
  
Flagg nearly laughed. "Looks like a crystal ball to me."  
  
Dr Fate had caused the crystal ball to materialize onto the table. The JSA along with Colonel Flagg, who was representing the United States government, were attempting to discern where the missing Catwoman and the ninety-nine canisters of VX nerve gas may be.  
  
"This is probably our best chance to find out where we need to go," Wildcat said.  
  
"A crystal ball?" an incredulous Colonel Flagg said. "You guys are going to use a crystal ball to determine what our next move is? I knew it! You guys are nuts! I told them back in Washington -- only nuts go around in public wearing masks and capes. That's it ... I'm outta here ..."  
  
Flagg attempted to rise from his chair but he was unable to. He tried to stand up again, but it felt as though some unseen force was keeping him weighed down in the chair. He continued to struggle without success.  
  
"I daresay, Colonel Flagg, the JSA needs the assistance of the United States government," Dr Mid-Nite started to explain, "and you'll just have to sit there and watch as our colleague, the esteemed Dr Fate, conjures up the information we require from his ... portal device."  
  
"Stay still and enjoy the show, Colonel," The Sandman urged.  
  
Flagg tried once more to move to a standing position but he was kept down by the invisible bonds. He finally resigned himself to sit and watch what would transpire next with the costumed crimefighters.  
  
"Is everyone ready?" Dr Fate asked as he looked into the crystal ball.  
  
"Isn't there some rule about everyone having to be a believer or something to make this work?" Wildcat inquired.  
  
"No, that is only with parlor tricks," Fate explained. "Colonel Flagg's not believing what he is about to see will have no effect."  
  
Wildcat nodded.  
  
Flagg watched the crystal ball change from a clear color to yellow, then red, then a glowing bluish hue. Next, he saw smoke swirling inside of the ball.  
  
"Hey, Houdini ..." Flagg tried to interrupt.  
  
"Shut up, Flagg!" Sandman yelled. "Or the next thing you'll know, you'll be sleeping through this."  
  
The CIA man decided to be quiet and watched as, incredibly, an image began to form in the ball. Flagg could see water and then an overhead view of a large ship. The ship began to get closer and closer. It was apparently a freighter somewhere on the high seas.  
  
Batman spoke for the first time. "Is that where Catwoman may be held?"  
  
"I believe so, Caped Crusader," Dr Fate answered.  
  
"The name of the ship. We need the name of the ship," Gotham's avenger stated.  
  
The image in the crystal ball started to move toward the aft of the large ship. There, in white letters on a black background, was the word: Das Wunderkind.  
  
"The wonderchild?" Wildcat asked.  
  
"Perhaps prodigy might be a better term in English," Dr Mid-Nite suggested. "Let me make contact with my maritime sources and see if I can track down this ship." Mid-Nite quickly left the room.  
  
Flagg moved his eyes from the crystal ball to the faces of the Justice Society members in the room. They all had a serious look. Well, he couldn't tell what the guy in the shiny gold mask was thinking -- his face was totally obscured. But the rest of them were dead serious.  
  
***  
  
As the twin rotor blades of the Batcopter whirled overhead, I look over to check my passengers on the flight. In the jump seats behind me and The Sandman in the copilot seat are Wildcat and Dr Fate.  
  
I can see from the corner of my eye that Wildcat's palms are probably sweating inside his gloves. He keeps pulling at them, stretching his fingers inside the leather-like material. Three Shuriken spikes were sheathed on hte back of each glove. He had the spikes custom-made, since finding them commercially was extremely difficult.  
  
Dr Fate is an engima in my mind. I don't know him well and I admit to myself that I still feel uneasy around those who have extraordinary powers. But those same extraordinary powers are what was able to bring all of us and the Batcopter halfway around the world in the blink of an eye.  
  
But still the shiny gold mask hides much of the emotion of the man behind it. I find it difficult to get a handle on Dr Fate. But I do know one thing, I'm glad he's with us tonight.  
  
The Sandman was ready. But ready is such a nebulous term. One resigns himself to facing death out of necessity, it was never something to take with complete calm. But The Sandman came as close to it as possible. Even though his features were obscured completely by the gas mask he wears, it was easier to have a better understanding of what the man was feeling and thinking. His entire body gave away many of his emotions. I don't know if Sandman knew that or not.  
  
I catch The Sandman eyeing me. As though he were reading my mind, he said, "I'm always nervous before something like this. Death holds little appeal."  
  
If I were to allow myself to smile, I would've -- but I can't. I have an image to uphold. I say to him in reply, "Death isn't something I'm especially eager to face either."  
  
The Sandman rolled back the sleeve of his suitcoat to look at his watch. He looked away from the face, and focused on mine. He nodded.  
  
I look back out the windshield of the Batcopter. The superstructure amidships of the Wunderkind loomed on the horizon.  
  
Sandman turned to look at Dr Fate and Wildcat. "The attack begins," he said.  
  
Wildcat only nodded. The sweating inside his gloves had all but stopped.  
  
The superstructure of the Wonderkind seemed higher now, more massive. The outlines of cargo-hold hatches were visible fore and aft, the radar mast and radar antennas towered over the bridge. Coming up from port I could make out the massive anchor, and just aft of the prow the windlass and mooring winch.  
  
I can see men moving on the deck as the Wunderkind came into greater definition. The Batcopter was obviously becoming more apparent to them now, and some of the deck personnel began to run.  
  
The Sandman spoke through the helicopter's PA System. He was telling those in command of the ship to heave to, and to prepare to be boarded. There was the possibility the ship's personnel would offer no resistance.  
  
That possibility went out the window when I hear the ricochet of a rifle bullet off the fuselage of the Batcopter.  
  
"Oh, well," Wildcat sighed.  
  
The fuselage of the Batcopter was bulletproof and offered its occupants protection from the gunshots. Gunfire was streaming up toward them now from the deck. Sandman said, "Between the amidships cargo holds, land us there, Batman!"  
  
There was no need for a reply as I maneuvered the Batcopter to bank hard to port, coming in at an angle toward the freighter. A man with a machine gun stood amidships, just where the Batcopter was heading. At the distance, a hundred yards and closing fast, anyone getting off the helicopter was an easy target.  
  
Suddenly the chatter from the subgun seemed to stop as the weapon began to melt in the hands of the man. The result of a spell from Dr Fate.  
  
Wildcat said to his companion in the next seat, "Nice going, Doc!"  
  
We were twenty yards from the landing area I had selected, and closing fast. A man rushed up to where the machine gunner was, firing a pistol. As he dropped to his knees at the gun emplacement, Wildcat watched as the pistol seemed to turn into a small bird in the man's hand and flew away.  
  
I wanted to smile at that one -- but I can't. There's too much work ahead of us. I need to find Selina.  
  
After we land, I expect the fighting to be hard, perhaps deadly for some, but it will be a good fight. I can feel my muscles already pumping adrenaline and my senses are honed and sharp. This is what I live for.  
  
The occupants of the Batcopter loosened their safety restraints as the chopper started to settle.  
  
With the Batcopter still six feet off the deck, I yell to my colleagues, "Go for it."  
  
Dr Fate slid open the fuselage door and flew into the air, his bright gold cape flowing behind him. Wildcat followed him and jumped to the deck. He was followed by The Sandman, who had his gas gun at ready.  
  
I quickly land the Batcopter and put it into lockdown mode. Behind me I can hear the sounds of the grunts of our opponents being thrown into crates and hard onto the deck of the ship. The battle is on.  
  
Batman hit the deck and rolled at the sound subgun fire to his left. As he came to his knees, a machine gun opened up from the superstructure amidships.  
  
The Caped Crusader launched himself forward, the deckplates under his feet echoing with the machine-gun slugs, the pattern catching up to him as he dived to the protection of some cargo crates lashed down and covered with a tarpulin at the base of the superstructure.  
  
The tops of the crates seemed to explode upward, and Batman felt bits of fabric and slivers of wood pelting him.  
  
He looked toward the superstructure and the machine-gun nest trying to figure out how to get out of his predicament. A fresh burst of machine-gun fire hammered into the crates.  
  
Batman could see The Sandman pinned down less than twenty feet from him.  
  
The machine gun fell silent, but then started again.  
  
The firing seemed to stop once more and Batman was up and running toward the metal steps leading up to the superstructure. What happened to the machine-gunner, Batman didn't know.  
  
He reached the top of the steps and raced across the superstructure as the machine-gunner started to turn his weapon around. Batman flew into a drop kick and hit the man square on in the face, sending him sprawling to the slick surfaced deck.  
  
The machine gunner's face and most of his head seemed to be a mass of blood.  
  
While Batman had been busy with the machine gunner, Wildcat had reached the superstructure as well. He caught a blur of motion to his right, and glanced over to see the wheelhouse door opening. Wildcat's right hand snatched one of the Shuriken spikes from the back of his left glove. His hand snapped the stainless steel spike toward the target like a cobra making a strike. The man's body slammed back against the wheelhouse door as the deadly spike plunged into his chest, backflipping through the glass forming the upper panel.  
  
The crimefighters fought the crew of the freighter in hand-to-hand combat now. There was little automatic weapon fire thanks to one of Dr Fate's spells that made the guns inoperable.  
  
Sandman started across the superstructure. Crewmen came at him from various openings, some turned and ran as they saw him, some wanted to fight. The Sandman obliged.  
  
Batman reached a companionway leading down into the bowels of the ship.  
  
A tremendous explosion rocked the Masked Manhunter back against the bulkhead. The origin of the blast was unknown.  
  
I started down into the companionway. If Selina were somehow still aboard, I intend to find her. No one is going to stop me.  
  
There is a smell of gasoline ahead in the darkness as I reached the base of the metal treads.  
  
I keep going. The gasoline smell is stronger now, almost nauseous. I turn at an elbow bend in the darkened passageway. Ahead of me I can barely discern the outline of a male shape. "Hold it!" he shouted to me in English -- it didn't matter. It was the sound, not the word in a situation like this.  
  
The figure wheeled, and I tucked against the bulkhead to my left, dodging as a tongue of flame licked out toward me from the darkness, a huge one, like the tongue of a monster.  
  
The bulkhead beside me was suddenly scorched a deathly black as the passageway burst with the orange light of fire. It was a flame thrower. My blood began to run cold.  
  
After gasping, I dropped to my knees. The heat of the flame in the confined space of the passageway suddenly robbed me of oxygen and seared my face below the mask portion of my cowl.  
  
Acting on pure instinct, I reach to my utility belt and pull out a smoke capsule. I need cover to escape. I throw the glass tube toward the man using the flamethrower. A tremendous roar hurled down the passage. I hit the beast too well. Dead on, in fact -- probably not the best idea. I throw myself flat onto the floor of the passage. I can feel the blistering heat as it cooked the air around me. I take my fireproof cape and cover my face with it. I can still see the orange light of fire pushing its way over me.  
  
I can smell nothing but burning gasoline as the metal corridor was transformed into a furnace. I push myself up, and stumbled back down the hall, not daring to breathe again.  
  
I reached the base of the metal steps, throwing myself against the treads, and crawled upward out of the inferno. My lungs are burning, and the skin on my face is drawn taught where the intense heat had sucked out the mositure.  
  
I wanted desperately to draw a breath, but I knew if I did I would breathe in death. I summon up all my strength and lunge for the opening I see above me.  
  
I staggered to the deck of the superstructure, gulping in the cool air. A wall of flames sealed the passageway behind me as I looked back.  
  
I started to my feet. If Selina was down there I had to get to her. The feeling of panic of perhaps losing her again started to grip me. I started for the metal treads.  
  
Suddenly, I felt a firm hand on my right shoulder. "What are you doing?" a voice rasped.  
  
It was Wildcat and Batman shook his colleague off. "Going for Catwoman," the Caped Crusader almost shouted. "Get the hell out of my way!"  
  
"They're carrying naptha," Wildcat pleaded. "In a few minutes this ship will be gone. We have to get away!"  
  
"You get away --" and Batman shook Wildcat's hand from his shoulder.  
  
Wildcat was hauling at him, trying to pull him away from the steps -- away from Selina. Batman's right fist punched out for Wildcat's face. He missed, and clipped the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world on the right ear, but Wildcat didn't let go.  
  
Batman leaned over him, hammering his left fist into his fellow crimefighter's abdomen.  
  
Wildcat fell back, and as Batman ran for the steps, he heard Wildcat shout, "If she's in there, she's dead, Batman!"  
  
Punctuating Wildcat's words, a fireball belched upward. The Dark Knight reeled back, falling to the deck from the sudden explosion of heat.  
  
Wildcat was shouting over the roar of the flames, "She's dead if she's down there. We will be too if we don't get off this damn ship!"  
  
Batman yelled at Wildcat, "I thought I lost her on that island, and I'm sure not going to lose her now. You get out, I'm finding Catwoman!"  
  
For a moment, Wildcat only stared at him. Then he pleaded, "We need you to pilot the chopper -- the damn ship's ready to blow!"  
  
Batman grunted as logic tried to fight back into his mind.  
  
A voice was screaming from beyond the superstructure, from the main deck below.  
  
"Wait," Wildcat commanded, and he was up and running to the railing. He shouted down as Batman waited for the fireball to burn itself out. He would have to try this passage. There was no time for nothing else. But he sensed it was useless. He started forward, but the chemical smell hit him in the face like a fist.  
  
Suddenly, Wildcat's voice was behind him. "Batman, the captain is in the custody of Sandman and Dr Fate. They found out where False-Face went. And Catwoman was taken off the ship, I swear it. She's not here!"  
  
Batman wheeled. "What if he's lying?" he snarled. His voice was menacing.  
  
Wildcat's face cracked with a grin. "To save your life -- why would the captain lie for that? You must trust him, you have no choice. Go in there and die or trust us and live to find her."  
  
Batman licked his lips. His mouth was as dry as cotton. The Caped Crusader lowered his head. "All right," he hissed.  
  
To be continued ... 


	12. Chapter 12

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 12  
  
Batman, Wildcat, The Sandman, and Doctor Fate returned to the JSA headquarters in New York City empty-handed. Catwoman was still missing along with the ninety-nine canisters of VX nerve gas. The whereabouts of False-Face was another unanswered question.  
  
Dr Mid-Nite had informed the other heroes that Diana Prince had called and informed him that intelligence personnel in Morocco had confirmed the landing of a helicopter, which the captain of the East German freighter had indicated False-Face had used for his escape. At the desert airport where the helicopter had landed, a private plane that had taken False-Face from the airport had been made by its registration number. It was assumed that the registration number was spurious, but it would be difficult to change the number in midair -- though this too could be done with special chemical paints.  
  
When the crimefighters arrived back in New York, a massive search by the Free World Nations secret services and law enforcement was already underway to determine the plane's eventual landing site.  
  
As they waited for intelligence to filter through, the crimefighters tried to relax from the strain. Bruce Wayne sat on the veranda beside the indoor pool. Wesley Dodds sat nearby, reading one of Charles McNider's thriller novels. Ted Grant sat in an inflated chair in the pool, reading as well.  
  
Reading, or perhaps playing chess, was the only way to pass the time. They were waiting. The Batplane was on alert at nearby Idlewood Airport, the Batmobile was ready outside the JSA mansion to transport them there.  
  
Charles McNider manned the telephones, alternately waiting for information to be called in and calling out to hunt it down. In the stillness, Bruce Wayne could periodically hear McNider's voice.  
  
Bruce flipped through another article in the magazine he was reading. He waited.  
  
Selina had been taken aboard a seaplane, but the captain of the freighter had sworn he had not known the destination. Bruce felt his brow crease into furrows. He wondered what would False-Face do with her? He closed the magazine. He knew what he would do with False-Face when he found him someday. It wouldn't be pretty. Bruce Wayne waited.  
  
***  
  
His Nazi contact had driven in silence through Oklahoma City and the outlying countryside, saying nothing. Recalling his geography, False-Face determined that ahead would be the Canadian River. There was a U.S. Air Force base there and that was his goal. But first the house, the change of clothes from his disguise as a British businessman. It was a versatile disguise. Removing the mustache and brushing the hair forward over his face, he matched the Canadian passport photo and a new identity.  
  
This next disguise would not be so versatile, but vastly more useful.  
  
The Volkswagon Beetle turned a sharp right up a driveway barely wide enough for one full-sized car to pass without bruising the trees that lined the sides of the road. The noise of gravel crunching under the tires made him realize the VW was stopping -- the silent Nazi had been a faultless driver.  
  
False-Face turned to the man. "You drive very well," he said in English.  
  
The man only nodded and stepped out of the car.  
  
False-Face stepped out as well, and stretched his long legs, feeling the blood flow once again into cramped muscles and joints. A long ride in a small car was not his idea of comfort.  
  
The silent Nazi had opened the trunk at the front of the car and was setting down the single suitcase False-Face had brought with him. False- Face looked at the low front porch of the home as a tall, gaunt man with a heavy mustache wearing a turtleneck sweater and the uniform pants of a U.S. Air Force officer stepped down from the last of three steps, his feet making a crunching sound across the gravel. The man did not smile, merely walked ahead and stopped, saying, "Herr False-Face, it is a pleasure to meet you."  
  
False-Face nodded. It was always a pleasure for someone to meet him. "The pleasure is mine Major Kirkwood," he replied.  
  
Kirkwood's eyes flickered toward the Volkswagon, then Kirkwood snapped, "That is all, Ziggy."  
  
False-Face glanced toward the silent Nazi, watching as the man bowed slightly then started to get back into his car.  
  
"Come into my house, please, Herr False-Face," said Kirkwood.  
  
"Thank you," False-Face nodded. He followed the U.S. Air Force major up the three steps and across the porch. Kirkwood held the door open deferentially, and False-Face passed through. It was a comfortable if slightly sparse-looking home, False-Face noted as a woman appeared in the passageway at the far end of what he assumed was a dining room. She was wringing a floral apron in her hands.  
  
"This is my wife, Herr False-Face," explained Kirkwood.  
  
"Madame Kirkwood," False-Face nodded, smiling. The woman curtsied and turned on her heel and disappeared.  
  
False-Face turned to Kirkwood. "All is in readiness." It was a statement, not a question.  
  
"The F-4 is ready, Herr False-Face," responded the man. "But it is very fast. You can ..."  
  
"I can fly it." False-Face quickly interrupted. "And the bomb laced with the nerve gas is ready and located aboard the aircraft." Again a statement.  
  
"Yes, Herr False-Face. If I should be found out ..." Kirkwood faltered.  
  
"You will not be unless it is by your own hand or your own fear," stated False-Face, his voice flat and firm. "The uniform is ready as I requested?"  
  
"Yes, Herr False-Face," Kirkwood nodded, his face sweating profusely.  
  
"Excellent," said False-Face, who smiled as he patted the major on the back. He had decided now that after he changed identities he would have to kill the major and his wife. The major was too nervous and knew too much and the wife, of course, could tell.  
  
The silent Nazi from the Volkswagon knew nothing.  
  
The wife reappeared. "A dinner I have made for Herr False-Face is ready," she said.  
  
False-Face smiled. "I am touched by your hospitality, madame, truly touched." He was, he thought. Home cooking was always a pleasure, however humble the fare.  
  
***  
  
"Where are you taking me?"  
  
Whatever voices belonged to those people gripping her upper arms didn't answer her.  
  
"Take this blindfold off," demanded Selina. "What are you afraid of? My hands are tied behind my back." There was no answer. She swallowed hard.  
  
She felt a change of direction, and the hands started to take her down a staircase. She started to stumble, and she was concerned that her anonymous jailers would just let her fall. But the hands only dug into her upper arms more tightly. "If it's money you want, I've got more money than False-Face could count." It was a gamble right out of the movies. But sometimes it actually worked.  
  
Suddenly, the hands stopped her. She felt herself tensing. She'd be true to her words if they released her. Money was something she had in great amounts, something she could always replace or replenish. "Will you release me?" she asked.  
  
When the voice finally came, it carried with it a heavy drawl, like it belonged to someone in the southern United States. "Could I get into your pants too?"  
  
That pissed her. Who the hell did he think he was talking to, some two-bit hooker on the street? She held back any outward sign of her temper from showing and continued acting like the scared, docile female. She nodded and said, "If you release me, you can have me and the money -- but release me first."  
  
"Would you do anything I want?" the voice asked her.  
  
She hesitated, then let them think she was complying again, "Yes, anything you want. I swear it if you'll let me go."  
  
"How about the other guy here?" asked the voice.  
  
She felt the muscles around her eyes tightening as she nodded. "Yes -- anything he wants, too. Just let me go, please."  
  
She felt the hands on her arms turn her around, felt her naked breasts brush against the rough jacket of the man who had spoken. She felt herself pressed against the man, his clothing scratching the skin of her chest.  
  
"After False-Face has his ultimate triumph I'll be one of the elite," he snorted, "one of the masters. Maybe then, if you're a good little girl, I'll keep you, let you shine my boots maybe, let you ..."  
  
She had heard enough. Selina drove her right knee hard upward and caught the would-be "master" just right and he dropped to ground like a pile of bricks.  
  
She felt the rush of air against her left cheek before she felt the pressure of the second man's hand. She tried to roll with the blow, but the impact caught her and stunned her. She collapsed to the ground, the salty taste of blood on her lips.  
  
She heard a key turn in a lock, and the sound of rusty hinges being worked. She felt herself being hauled erect and turned to her right, then hands on her shoulders, roughly shoving her. She tried making her bare feet move fast enough, felt herself falling, her knees paining her as they scraped against some hard surface. She fell forward, her right cheek thudding into the hard floor, her nose suddenly feeling stiff and sore. She then heard the rusty-sounding hinges again, and the turning of the key in the lock. She lay there, thankful they hadn't done something worse to her, raped her. Yet.  
  
Selina twisted her body, trying to get up. As she tried to move, she felt a wave of nausea pass over her, racking her body. She fell forward again. Then in her dark world, she rolled over onto her left side, breathing hard. She tried to lift her head but she fell back, her brain swirling, and she lost consciousness.  
  
When she woke up, she tried to open her eyes, then remembered the blindfold. Her throat burned.  
  
She pushed herself across the floor. It felt like dirt beneath her. She kept moving, tentatively and slowly, pushing her feet in front of her body, exploring the way. Her feet smacked against something hard, and she felt rough concrete against her skin.  
  
She edged her head closer and started to rub the blindfold against the wall, trying to shift it. The concrete sliced away at her skin like a hundred tiny knives. Finally, she could squint and see light with her left eye, the blindfold only down far enough to increase her discomfiture. She kept rubbing at it, getting it down now by wriggling her nose as well. Her nose was stiff and felt clotted with blood.  
  
Her eyes clamped shut against the light. The blindfold had fallen across her nose, making it hard for her to breathe.  
  
The first thing she saw was the wall. It was gray concrete, streaked with her own blood where she had scraped at the blindfold.  
  
She licked her lips. They felt puffed and swollen, the skin cracked and dry.  
  
She looked down at herself. She was scraped and scratched and naked. But everything looked okay.  
  
She cocked her head back against the wall. The knot of the blindfold was bound into her hair and it hurt. She studied her prison. It was a cellar, empty, with a heavy-looking wooden door.  
  
Selina Kyle twisted her body around against the wall, trying to gain leverage against it to stand.  
  
As she stood, more of the nausa swept over her. She closed her eyes until it passed.  
  
Her legs worked, and she slowly started across the room toward the solitary barred window. The glass was dirty and she couldn't see clearly through it. By standing on her tiptoes, she was able to reach the bottom of the glass panel with her face. The blindfold was still over her nose and she rubbed it against the window by moving her face back and forth. The dirt was old and hardened, but a clear spot started to emerge.  
  
Leaning against the wall, cold against her flesh, she peered through the eyehole in the streaky dirt. Staring back at her was a chicken.  
  
***  
  
Entering the air base had been easier than he had anticipated. Major Kirkwood had done his work well -- the late Major Kirkwood, False-Face smiled. He walked toward the hangar, looking smart, he thought, in his blue U.S. Air Force major's uniform.  
  
He casually returned an enlisted man's salute and entered the hangar. A mechanic stood beneath the fuselage of his plane, making a final pre-flight check. As he drew closer to the F-4, passing on an angle from the tip of its starboard wing, he could read the aircraft number painted on the fuselage. The number ninety-two was in black against the silver-gray color of the aircraft.  
  
The mechanic, a sergeant, snapped to attention as he approached. The man said, "Major Garrity, your aircraft awaits!"  
  
False-Face only nodded, walking closer to the machine. It would do at least Mach 2, perhaps better than that. It was among the fastest of military aircraft.  
  
An officer was approaching, and False-Face eyed the man, placing the rank subordinate to him. He returned the young captain's salute, the man saying, "Major Garrity, I have been instructed to inspect your orders prior to take- off."  
  
False-Face smiled as he reached under his tunic and produced the documents. They were marked U.S. Air Force, North American Aerospace Defense Command. They were signed by the commander-in-chief of NORAD. False-Face couldn't restrain a smile as he watched the young officer's eyes widen.  
  
The captain returned the orders, saluting. "I did not know, major --" he began.  
  
"You were not supposed to know," False-Face cut him off. "All is in readiness?"  
  
"Yes, major."  
  
"I shall change then into my flight suit. Have it brought from my car. It is parked outside the hangar." False-Face glanced at his watch. "I wish to be airborne in exactly seventeen minutes."  
  
"Yes, major. Sergeant -- the automobile!" he snapped at the mechanic.  
  
False-Face smiled, and fished his keys from his trouser pocket. He called after the sergeant as he jogged off, "Sergeant, you might need these!" He tossed the keys to the mechanic.  
  
Soon, he would be flying over the breadth of the nation that was one of the two most powerful on earth -- one of the vultures that had picked at the bones of the Reich. And soon a nerve gas weapon, one that The Boomer had so meticulously prepared, would do its work.  
  
He clapped his hands together softly, rubbing them like a man would do if he were cold. "I shall change now," he proclaimed, starting across the hangar. The young captain at his heels.  
  
***  
  
Back in costume, Dr Mid-Nite ran across the marbled floor of the corridor, Batman watching him from the leather easy chair beside the cold hearth of the library. Batman got to his feet. There was something in the way Dr Mid- Nite came in the room, in the look on his face as well.  
  
"Wildcat, I think we've got something, Wildcat ..." He walked to his friend's chair, and nudged the man's right shoulder to awaken him. Colonel Flagg, who had joined them earlier, started to sit up. He too had been dozing.  
  
"Wake up, Wildcat, come on," Batman prodded.  
  
"Jeez," Wildcat muttered.  
  
Batman watched as Wildcat's eyes suddenly opened.  
  
Batman walked across the room to the open sliding doors. Dr Mid-Nite was nearly through the corridor, slowing his run, smiling.  
  
"You've got something?" Batman said.  
  
Dr Mid-Nite began. "A lead, we've got a lead. Sandman is on the telephone now. He had come in to talk for a moment and the telephone rang. It was the FBI in Oklahoma City. One of their men had infiltrated the Nazi underground, and just did some driving for them. He took a tall, British- looking man to the home of an air force major they've had under surveillance, a Major Kirkwood. The man matched the description the freighter captain was persuaded to give. The FBI man left, but waited in the woods with binoculors. Kirkwood never came out, nor did his wife. But a third person did, dressed as an Air Force major. He drove off in a car that the driver had never seen, presumably Kirkwood's. The driver waited two hours, but after seeing no movement he went down to Kirkwood's house and peered through a window. He admitted that he threw up. Kirkwood's wife was in the kitchen, her throat slit. The driver broke down the door and ran inside. Kirkwood was dead as well and there was no sign of False-Face. The driver tried using the telephone, but the wires had been cut and the vibrator in the mouthpiece removed. He ran back to his car and then raced back to Oklahoma City to report his findings. The man dressed as the Air Force major had been gone more than four hours by then."  
  
"Shit," Wildcat snapped.  
  
"Yes, quite," Dr Mid-Nite agreed. He turned to the CIA man. "Colonel Flagg, do you think you could get on the phone and get through the government red tape -- I don't envy you -- to get permission for us to contact the Air Force? The FBI thinks False-Face may be a mysterious Major Garrity, who flew off in an F-4, but the Air Force base won't designate where."  
  
"If False-Face went to the trouble of stealing a plane and killing the Nazis who set it up, he'll have one of the nerve gas canisters aboard," Batman ventured. He heard Colonel Flagg make a low whistle.  
  
"If he drops one over a city," Flagg began. He left the conclusion open for speculation.  
  
"My God! An air burst of nerve gas over a city?" Dr Mid-Nite asked.  
  
Batman was studying his boots, thinking. He heard the distant clicking of heels on the marble floor of the corridor and looked up. The Sandman was running quickly toward them.  
  
The crimefighter who wore a gas mask shouted, "He's heading to Florida -- and is probably there now. Wonder Woman was able to get the information we needed. And there was an item aboard the plane. It may be a device laced with VX nerve gas."  
  
Batman started to run for the front door, shouting to Colonel Flagg, "Get on the phone, Colonel, get the clearances set up to get us into Florida."  
  
"I'm coming along," Batman heard Wildcat shouting.  
  
"You, Dr Mid-Nite and Colonel Flagg look for Catwoman," ordered the Caped Crusader. "False-Face may not make it through this alive, so it's up to you to find Catwoman."  
  
Batman punched the double front doors open, almost shattering the stained glass as he raced out of the mansion headquarters of the Justice Society of America. In the driveway was the Batmobile. The Masked Manhunter felt it in his blood. It was False-Face. False-Face had another bomb laced with VX nerve gas. False-Face would use it and maybe start World War III just for fun.  
  
The Sandman was climbing into the passenger seat of the Batmobile. Behind him he heard Dr Mid-Nite shout to him, "I'll try to get you some help!"  
  
"You do that!" Batman replied.  
  
To Be continued ... 


	13. Chapter 13

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 13  
  
The weather in Florida was not at all to False-Face's liking. The air was clear and clean and he liked that. But it was hot.  
  
He looked skyward. When the detonation took place, it would rain VX nerve gas upon America's fledging space program at Cape Canaveral. He smiled at the thought. It was all working out better than he had hoped.  
  
He watched as the technicians unloaded the crate from the F-4, then carefully transferred it to the van. "Be careful with that," he urged, "or there will be serious repercussions."  
  
It was, after all, a dangerous weapon.  
  
The Air Force personnel were nearly through loading it. He started toward the van, watching with mild interest as the device was secured inside. The last of the loading crew jumped out to the runway surface and nearly lost his balance. False-Face reached out to support the man at his elbow. "Thank you, major," the young man nodded.  
  
False-Face flashed a smile. He turned and addressed the man heading the work crew. "Corporal, as your officer instructed you, this is of the highest priority. Tell no one of what you have seen here, no one of even any slight suspicion you might have as to the contents of this container," he said as he gestured inside the van. "The continued security of the United States, of the very loved ones whom you represent in uniform, is at stake. Suffice to say, this involves the foiling of a communist plot. I have told you and your men more than I should have."  
  
He watched the glow of pride in the corporal's eyes, the straightening of the shoulders of the men of the work crew.  
  
"I salute you," False-Face said and did.  
  
The corporal closed the van doors and False-Face walked toward the driver's door.  
  
He boarded the van and gunned the engine to life. It was more than a fifteen-mile drive to the space center at Cape Canaveral.  
  
And his destiny.  
  
***  
  
They had gotten airborne almost immediately after arriving at Idlewood Airport. The Sandman was continually on the radio, conferring with Dr Mid- Nite at JSA headquarters, Air Force personnel, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pentagon. Sandman had agreed to intercept False-Face would result in one of two possible occurrences -- False-Face would change identity and set the nerve gas device for remote detonation; or if False- Face were unable to escape, he would simply detonate the device and possibly issue some low frequency radio signal to have the other ninety- eight detonated.  
  
The potential end of civilization was not a cheery prospect.  
  
"You look nervous, my friend," came The Sandman's voice, interrupting my thoughts.  
  
I looked up from the flight controls and replied, "I am nervous."  
  
"About False-Face?" asked Sandman.  
  
"Nervousness won't help that," I responded.  
  
"Then about what would happen if we don't stop him?" The Sandman wondered.  
  
"Yes," I said, "perhaps a little nervous about that."  
  
"You always come up on top of evil," said Sandman in a magnanimous tone.  
  
I dismissed that, asking instead, "Will they give us the information of where False-Face landed?"  
  
"Just waiting for a message from Diana," The Sandman explained. "She has to contact some senior people and is trying to get permission to allow us to apprehend False-Face in our own way. As of yet, it has been unconfirmed where he has landed in Florida. It is a big state. Apparently his counterfeit orders are so good in appearance that they are being obeyed, and superceding their security restrictions is difficult."  
  
***  
  
She heard him opening the door, heard his patronizing voice. "Remember, honey, if you've worked off that blindfold again, I'm gonna make you eat this stuff with your hands tied behind your back, make you lick it out of your bowl like a dog."  
  
She smiled. She had worked her hands loose, after they had been tied again, this time in front of her, following the scraps of food she had been given that morning. She had been given no clothes to wear, and no plumbing, not even a bucket, had been provided for her use. She had resorted to making catholes in the earthern floor with her toes and covering them with dirt, which she kicked in place.  
  
She hated.  
  
She waited.  
  
These idiots had no idea who they were dealing with.  
  
The man who had brought her breakfast had secured the blindfold after tying her once more. He hadn't even seemed concerned that she had worked it free.  
  
She hated him more for that.  
  
He had worn a pistol on his belt. She had to get the gun.  
  
She waited. He passed through the doorway. "You behind that door waitin' for me, huh?" he said. There was a mocking tone in his voice.  
  
She was indeed, but hanging from the hook on the inside of the door instead, this giving her a foot's height advantage. As he came around the door, she dropped the noose of rope that had bound her hands over his head, around his neck, with the rope looped over the hook, she threw her weight down to the floor, the other end of the rope secured around her waist. It was a one-shot try. She had to knock the man out with the weight of her body.  
  
She hurtled herself downward, suspended in midair a moment at the level of the backs of his knees.  
  
She fell the rest of the way to the floor, sheilding her head with her arms and hands. He struggled trying to the ropes from his neck. She held on for dear life. He fell to the floor on top of her.  
  
All the breath was forced out of her body. But he had hit his head hard on the floor and was unconscious. Coughing, she dragged herself from under his body. She remembered to undo the knotted rope around her waist -- her ribs ached.  
  
She crawled away from him, staring at him for an instant.  
  
He was knocked out -- maybe worse.  
  
She crawled back toward him, reaching the police-type holster on his trouser belt.  
  
She had the gun in her hands.  
  
She stood up, and moved cautiously toward the door. There was no sound, no sign of alarm. She went back to the unconscious man, her persecutor. She felt through his pockets, finding extra bullets.  
  
She stripped the man of his shirt, and draped it over her naked and bruised body. After a final look around her prison cell she walked through the doorway. She locked the door behind her, and threw the key down the dirt- floored corridor. Clutching the pistol, she started to climb the basement stairs. There was a sound ahead of her, a television set, she guessed. She stopped beneath an open trap door. Slowly, she peered over the floorboards through the opening.  
  
The head of a man was visible above the back of an easy chair. There was a children's cartoon program on the television and the man was laughing at it. Slowly, she climbed the last of the steps, silently praying that a board didn't creak. As she stepped through the opening and onto the rolled- back rug, she looked about the room. There was only the man in the chair. Two men's coats were visible hanging from a hall tree down a hallway.  
  
She would gamble.  
  
One of the cartoon characters fired a gun at the head of another. The second character's head turned black and the hair burned away. In the next scene, the character who had been shot in the head was chasing the other one.  
  
Real life was different. At ten feet, unless there was something fundamentally wrong with the revolver, she couldn't miss. She raised the revolver. Her finger was on the trigger as she took aim.  
  
Then the thought hit her. Catwoman doesn't kill. As much as she should and wanted to kill -- she couldn't. She had her own personal code and that said she was not a killer.  
  
Turning the gun around in her hand, she slowly crept toward the man who sat entranced at the cartoon on the television. Raising the pistol in both hands, she slammed the butt hard on the top of his head. He never knew what hit him. he was out for the count and more. She thought she might had hit him too hard.  
  
She held her breath. There were no shouts, no alarms, no screams, nothing.  
  
She stood there a moment, watching the cartoon. It ended, and a short titles segment followed, then the screen went blank for an instant. Call letters were flashed and an announcer's voice intoned, "The one to watch in Springfield, Illinois."  
  
"Springfield, Illinois?" she repeated. She had heard of the city. It was in south central Illinois, she remembered.  
  
Quickly, she found some extra rope that was laying on a table top. She bound and gagged her unconscious prisoner. She hit him again for good measure. She dragged the couch over to the man and lifted it enough so that she could lay it on top of him. He wasn't going anywhere.  
  
Selina Kyle walked across the room, and stared through the front window. A station wagon was parked in the yard, and chickens and ducks wandered about. Fields covered in snow filled her view. She looked around the house. On the kitchen table, she found car keys. She continued the search and found a folding knife. She left it closed. Her nails were damaged enough. On the coffee table was another revolver.  
  
A gun in each hand, Selina Kyle explored the house further. There were no women's clothes, only the belongings of the two men.  
  
But there was a bathroom. It was a risk, but there were towels and there was even shampoo.  
  
Selina looked down at the stainless steel pistol and shrugged. She set the gun on the edge of the bathtub and turned on the water. When the temperature was right, she stripped off the shirt and stepped inside, leaving the other gun on the sink. She turned up the water.  
  
She had seen something in her eyes in the bathroom mirror, something she was happy to see. Despite the dirt, the unkempt hair, the smell of her flesh, there was a spark of strength and humanity.  
  
They hadn't taken that from her. As she soaped her body, she watched the shiny, wet revolver. It reassured her, but not more than her will reassured her.  
  
***  
  
About four thousand, two hundred people lived in Cape Canaveral -- not counting the tens of thousands who worked at the space center. The cream of American computer, rocket, engineering and less widely known disciplines resided and worked there, freely exchanging ideas on science and technology. The winners of prestigious scientific prizes also called Cape Canaveral home.  
  
False-Face stood before fifty of the finest minds now, summoned here for him in the little scientific community.  
  
Before him on a laboratory table was the nerve gas canister with a bomb attached to it. He began to speak. "This weapon was smuggled into the United States with the express intention of destroying a vital segment of American society, the intention of crippling the United States irreparably." The truth almost always sounded convincing. But his next remarks diverged from it. "It is a Russian secret weapon, sent to destroy us, I alone have been charged to bring this weapon here, to you -- the finest minds available on the East Coast -- for the task. You, Pappas," he said as he looked at a lean-faced, almost sorrowful-looking bearded man wearing a white lab coat, "You were once principal-weapons designer for the United States."  
  
"My research has taken me elsewhere, away from destruction," said the scientist.  
  
"But your skills are still the best," False-Face went on forcefully. "You will hand pick a team to assist you in dismantling the weapon before it can be detonated. We believe this canister to contain VX nerve gas."  
  
There was a sudden sound of gasps and drawn breaths from the scientists.  
  
False-Face continued, "I have ordered the space center and the town of Cape Canaveral sealed and closed. No is to be admitted without my express permission. Nor is anyone to be allowed to leave. Some members of the CIA themselves suspect complicity with the communists." He held a folded section of a lined paper from a pocket notebook high in the air for all to see. "On this slip of paper is the telephone number of operation headquarters. Once you have defused the Russian weapon of mass destruction, you are to call this number, Pappas. Not before. The switchboard has been ordered closed here until you make this call. No incoming or outgoing calls will be allowed. Communist elements are everywhere, I fear."  
  
"But surely we must know something about the nature of this device before we can begin." It was a woman who spoke, and False-Face guessed she belonged to Pappas.  
  
"Madame," he replied, and again he elected the truth, "we believe it is comprised of VX nerve gas. Surely, I don't have to tell you distinguished scientists what that means. I am certain the designer of this instrument arranged detonation to be impossible to avoid. The blast by the bomb will cause the nerve gas to billow into a poisonous cloud that could spread for many miles. The bomb will probably trigger if the slightest mistake is made. Yours is an impossible task -- but it must be accomplished."  
  
"Why was this weapon, this horrible thing, not brought to a bomb-dosposal area, or detonated in some safe location?" asked a dignified-looking white- haired man. He smoked a pipe, and the tobacco smelled very good.  
  
"There are, doctor, ninety-eight other devices similar to this one," False- Face replied. "Circumstances may arise in which more of these will be set against the United States. For that purpose, this device must be defused rather than detonated."  
  
The woman spoke again. "There are ninety-eight more of these -- each with VX nerve gas?" She sounded incredulous.  
  
"Many of these are already in Europe," False-Face went on, "waiting to be set against important cities and installations. It is imperative that you do what you must do." He glanced at his watch and continued, his voice marked with urgency. "There is one further reason why it was brought here and you were not transported to some safer site. Time is critical. In thirty-two minutes and ten seconds, if you cannot disarm it, it will detonate of its own accord." There were cries and gasps. One woman screamed. He saw tears in the eyes of the bearded man, Pappas.  
  
I salute you," he said, "and now I must take my leave." He handed the piece of paper with the phone number written across it to Pappas, turned and walked briskly from the room.  
  
He listened to his own heels clicking on the laboratory floor. He was immensely pleased with himself. But as the laboratory doors -- steel, triple thickness armor-plated steel -- slammed closed with a pneumatic hiss in his wake, he could feel that the JSA was closing in, and perhaps Batman himself as well. He smiled -- it was time to change identities.  
  
***  
  
"I am sorry, gentlemen," the base commander said. "But the orders of Major Garrity take precedence. I witnessed these myself. It is not a breach of security to admit that they were signed by the commander-in-chief of NORAD."  
  
"Those were forged orders, colonel," Batman said politely.  
  
"I have only the word of two men wearing masks and capes, and please believe I mean no disrespect," the colonel smiled.  
  
The Caped Crusader shrugged his shoulders. "I regret having to show you these additional orders, then, colonel." Batman grabbed the Air Force officer's left wrist, pulled, turned the man around quickly as he put one arm around his neck and placed the man's right arm behind his back in a hammer lock.  
  
All that could be heard was the sharp intake of the colonel's breath as he was taken completely by surprise by the sudden quickness of the move.  
  
The Sandman's gas gun appeared in his right fist and he was already aiming it toward the knot of junior officers standing some paces away.  
  
"You freaks -- you're overstepping your authority," challenged the base commander.  
  
"We're on the same side," Batman said severely. "Our authority supercedes yours, colonel. Do you like this part of Florida? There are other spots not so pleasant or as nice as Cape Canaveral -- like Alaska, for example. This man you aided is a Nazi named False-Face. He carries with him a bomb laced with VX nerve gas. He is a mass murderer. He is here to detonate this device and destroy the entire city and America's space program, killing thousands. You must tell us now what we need to know or do you wish to die soon?"  
  
When the Air Force colonel gave no response, The Sandman shrugged. He walked in front of the colonel. He began to speak. He was tired and angry. While Batman watched, Sandman rammed the muzzle of the gas gun against the base commander's crotch. The colonel did not now that the weapon was just a gas gun, he thought it was a gun armed with bullets. Sandman used this psychological advantage. He looked the colonel in the eye through his menacing-looking gas mask. "Tell Batman what he needs to know in ten seconds or I blow your testicles off one at a time. One ... two ... three ... four ..."  
  
***  
  
Sound psychological principles and reason had prevailed, Batman realized. They walked hurriedly now across the airfield to the hangar in which False- Face's F-4 was stored. As they entered the hangar, The Sandman took from his coat a device about the size of a flashlight and began waving it around.  
  
They stopped before the silver-gray F-4. Batman continued to watch the group of officers and men gathering behind them. He flickered his eyes from the men he was watching to The Sandman -- he was sweeping the flashlight- looking device over the open cargo hatch of the F-4.  
  
The masked crimefighter turned around after a small red lightbulb began flashing on his device. "This is a poison gas detection device," Sandman announced. "There is evidence of residual poison gas in the cargo area. You, the officer there," he said, pointing to a man who looked little more than twelve years old, even his hat seemed to big for him. Batman reflected that every branch of the armed forces sent its quartermasters to the same tailoring school -- if it's not so big that it falls off, it fits. "Come here, now!" The Sandman ordered.  
  
The young officer walked forward and stopped less than a yard from Sandman. "Now, lieutenant. Take this device in your hand and sweep the instrument along the open cargo. Announce what your results are."  
  
The young man nodded and held the device in his right hand. He swept it over the open cargo hatch, inside the fuselage, then stopped. He returned the device to The Sandman. Batman watched the man's Adam's apple bob nervously, the shoulders drawn back. "The masked man is correct, there is an indication of poison gas. We have apparently transferred poison gas."  
  
The base commander suddenly decided to ignore any danger the two masked crimefighters may had presented and started forward. Batman did nothing to stop him. The colonel stopped midway between Gotham's avenger and The Sandman and the young lieutenant. "I was wrong," the commander said simply. He turned and saluted Batman and Sandman. "We are at your disposal -- my men, all of us, to stop this madman. If you are somehow deceiving me, I shall kill you with my bare hands. But I cannot afford the risk to the people of this area. What do you want us to do?"  
  
The Sandman nodded toward Batman. "We have fought against False-Face before. We need to retrieve that device False-Face brought here."  
  
"If he's masquerading as an Air Force officer and his orders look that good," said Batman, "he'll probably have turned what police or security are available at the space center wherever against us. It may mean fighting your own people," he added. "No one wants to hurt their own, but we may have to in order to stop False-Face."  
  
***  
  
Batman ceased bothering to count the number of telephone calls that followed. At last, word came through that Cape Canaveral had been closed to motorized traffic going in or out, and the space center was sealed and ringed by security personnel and police from the area.  
  
The base commander set down the telephone. "The most brilliant minds of NASA are there," he explained to Batman. "Everybody knows everybody. Even my wife works in the complex as a research assistant. She was working late tonight." The man's face dripped sweat, but not from the heat of Florida weather, the Caped Crusader realized. "And our van which this False-Face requisitioned, was seen to enter the space center."  
  
Batman closed his eyes. He suddenly realized what False-Face was doing. "He spoke of a dangerous device or something that was being brought here, that it was some horrifying communist plot." The Dark Knight thought aloud. "Let's say he keeps to that idea. He brought the weapon to the science complex. Just to plant it? Why go through more security than he needed?" Batman walked toward the wall map of the area behind the colonel's desk. "There's a reservoir right at the edge of the space center. He could have planted the device, come back here and taken off. Or used some other means of quick exit. This is a setup, I'm sure of it. Are any persons here who were involved or are involved in the nation's weapons of mass destruction program?"  
  
The colonel's eyes flickered, but he did not immediately answer. Batman urgently tried to extricate an answer. "Well?"  
  
Doctor Milt Pappas," the colonel replied.  
  
"Isn't he the one who quit the American weapons designing program? I remember there was a major controversy about it," the Masked Manhunter said.  
  
"He is a man of peace," the base commander shrugged.  
  
"Then I know what he's doing," Batman decided. "He had The Boomer set the device to be tripped off. He's using Pappas and some of the others as his detonator. He probably told them he had this horrible communist weapon and for some reason or another they were the only ones who could disarm it, and that's why he sealed the space center. As they start to dismantle it, they'll detonate it. He likely gave them some sort of time limit to increase the probabilities of them not finding the tripping devices."  
  
"I have helicopters."  
  
Batman looked at the base commander. "You come with us -- we'll need all the influence we can muster if we want to avoid a shooting war with the people guarding the complex."  
  
"There's a helipad on the roof," the commander said.  
  
The Sandman stood up. "Shall we, gentlemen?"  
  
Batman started for the office door.  
  
To be continued ... 


	14. Chapter 14

JSA: If Looks Could Kill  
  
By Bruce Wayne  
  
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.  
  
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.  
  
Chapter 14  
  
The five rotor blades churning through the skies overhead made a terrible racket, Batman thought, turning toward Sandman as the crimefighter tapped him on the shoulder. The Sandman leaned toward the Caped Crusader's right ear, "We're almost there," he said through his gas mask.  
  
Besides himself and Batman seated behind the pilot and copilot -- in this case the pilot was the base commander himself -- there were eight other men, all heavily armed. Two more helicopters, each with two man crews and ten armed personnel, comprised the rest of the fleet. The Sandman glanced at his wristwatch, then out the Plexiglas ahead of him through the pilot's bubble. The lights of Cape Canaveral were coming up fast.  
  
The base commander asked the two crimefighters, "What's the strategy going to be? You want me to announce over the PA system that a problem exists and we will wait for a signal flare or some arrangement of shots to be fired or a radio contact before we move?"  
  
Batman replied, "Wait three minutes, hovering over the space center. If there is no agreement from the forces on the ground, we will initiate a three-pronged attack. Our craft will land on the science center roof, the craft to starboard on the science center lawn, the third craft on the parking lot. Your men -- they realize ..."  
  
"They are all volunteers. None of them wishes to kill his own countryman, but all realize the situation. They were told the truth so far as we know it," the colonel said.  
  
Batman nodded, realizing the colonel couldn't see him.  
  
"Good. You've got the ball, colonel -- until we get on the ground. But tell your people one thing -- False-Face could be anyone. If they're looking for a major in an Air Force uniform, they'll never find him. He could be anyone, from looking like Doctor Pappas to the cleaning lady. Anyone."  
  
"Even yourself, Batman?" and the Masked Manhunter heard the colonel's laughter. "We are over the target."  
  
Batman heard the words coming over the PA, echoing to the fenced-in area surrounding the science center. He doubted they would be believed, but regardless of the potential wasting of three minutes, they had to try to convince the defenders of the complex. They had to try ...  
  
Three minutes ticked away, and The Sandman watched the sweep second hand of his watch pass the inverted triangle that held the place of twelve -- but there was no flare, there was no radio message, there was no triple series of three shots fired from the darkness below.  
  
He heard the colonel's voice, sounding tight, choked. "If you mystery men are right and there is a God, then let him damn this False-Face who makes us kill our own men." There was a long pause, then the colonel simply said into his radio, "Begin." There was a slight shudder from the chopper as missiles were fired toward the ground beyond the police positions into a park. The night below lit with fire and the helicopter was moving.  
  
The craft to starboard broke off, arcing sharply away, veering toward the front lawns of the science center. The craft to port accelerated more rapidly than Sandman thought possible, climbing, seeming almost to skip over the complex roof, then dropped from sight. Their own helicopter was angling downward, going at a slower speed than either of the other two craft. The Sandman guessed the base commander spent more time flying a desk than a gunship.  
  
Batman could feel the helicopter settling. He heard the base commander's voice. "Touchdown in five -- one, two, three, four -- we've landed."  
  
One of the eight additional men on the chopper slid back the portside doors. Batman leapt out with The Sandman and the others behind him.  
  
A voice shouted out a warning from behind an external air conditioning unit. The Caped Crusader wheeled toward the voice, but gunfire started to crash through the night. He was on the run. He dived for cover behind an identical duplicate of the air conditioning unit. Assault-rifle fire punctuated the night around him. The Air Police advanced in a ragged wedge toward the origin of the gunfire. The PA system from the helicopter continued to demand surrender, trying to reason with the defenders.  
  
Batman was up and running, Sandman beside him as they started for what seemed to be a doorway leading down from the roof and inside. Four men raced to block them off, guns firing. The Dark Knight from Gotham City leapt into the air and dropped kicked one in the face. The Sandman used his gas gun on another defender. More men joined the original four, making six in all now. The Sandman pulled the trigger on the gas gun, all of the would- be defenders went down.  
  
Batman reached the door first -- it was locked.  
  
"Step back," the Masked Manhunter yelled. He reached to his utility belt and pulled out a glass tube. He threw it at the door and turned his face away. The Sandman also turned away as the door exploded off its hinges. Batman turned toward the doorway and pulled off what little of the door was left.  
  
The Sandman took out of his pocket something that looked like a metal can with a pull-ring on the top. "Put your gas mask on, Batman," he said.  
  
Batman reached into his utility belt once more and pulled out a device that covered his mouth and nose.  
  
Sandman pulled the ring on top of the can and immediately a jet of smoke started pouring out. He threw the knockout gas canister down the stairway and stepped back for a moment.  
  
"You ready?" Batman snapped.  
  
"Ready," The Sandman's voice rasped.  
  
Batman nodded in the darkness. "Let's go down the stairs."  
  
A moment later, the two heroes stepped through the doorway and into the blackness of the stairwell.  
  
As Batman was making his way cautiously down the stairs, he felt himself falling, tripping over a body, skidding down the stairs, bracing himself halfway and stopping his fall.  
  
There were no screams, no shouts. There was no gunfire.  
  
"Keep your head down." It was Sandman, and the Caped Crusader tucked down. The Sandman then let loose another volley of knockout gas from his gun.  
  
Batman stopped at the base of the stairwell. He could faintly see the doorway. "Cover me," he shouted hoarsely into the darkness behind him, hearing the sound of rifle bolts from the Air Police personnel who followed the two crimefighters down the stairwell.  
  
"Right," The Sandman's voice came.  
  
The Masked Manhunter tried the door -- its knob turned under his hand. It opened outward and he kicked the door open, blinded temporarily by the bright light from the corridor beyond. Gunfire tore through the open doorway toward him, and he tucked back.  
  
The Sandman took his place closest to the door. He whispered to the soldiers who had accompanied the heroes down the stairs. "Masks," he instructed quietly. He pulled out two more gas canisters from his pockets. Sandman pulled the ring on one of the cans and tossed it around the corner of the doorway. He pulled the ring on the other one and hurled it in the other direction in the corridor.  
  
He silently counted three and then shouted, "Let's go!" as he dived through, rolling into the corridor, jumping up, gas gun ready as his eyes searched for cover.  
  
Sandman ran for a doorway, assault-rifle fire chewing into the floor around his feet, ripping chunks of plaster from the corridor walls. Chunks of ceiling tile crashed down in a stream of dust.  
  
The Sandman hugged into the doorway, adjusted the nozzle on his gas gun. "Batman," he called out, "count to three and run for it, toward the doorway to your right as you make it through!"  
  
"Right," came the reply. "Counting -- one -- two -- THREE!"  
  
Sandman broke cover, running, firing his gas gun in a sweeping motion. The gas came out as a fog and covered the entire corridor.  
  
Batman did as he was instructed was safe in cover.  
  
The Sandman glanced at his watch -- there couldn't be much time left now before False-Face's device would blow and contaminate the space center with VX nerve gas, killing everyone without a gas mask on in its wake.  
  
"Go for it -- down the corridor," Batman shouted, breaking cover. Sandman was moving. He hoped they had enough time.  
  
***  
  
Milt Pappas looked to his dark-haired, dark-eyed wife at his side. "You should have taken the children and left when the major brought the weapon here," he said softly.  
  
"No -- the complex was sealed," he heard her whisper, watching her hands. She was a cardiac surgeon, and she was using this touch, this delicacy, to unravel the wires within what appeared to be the main detonator.  
  
"The guards know you, they trust you, they would have perhaps let you leave," he persisted.  
  
Pappas shuddered, hearing more of the gunfire from beyond the steel doors of the demonstration laboratory. He watched his wife's eyes flicker each time there was a fresh burst of fire.  
  
He looked from her to his colleague. Anderson's white mane of hair fell across his eyes and he brushed it back as he scrutinized the detonator head. "This is useless," the older man began. "I tell you, Milt, this is useless. The entire device is set as a trap."  
  
"I think the war has begun already." Pappas looked at the origin of the voice, Anderson's assistant, Tina. "It is World War III," she said without raising her eyes from the systems diagram she was completing at the drafting table at the far end of the laboratory table.  
  
"It is not a world war," Pappas heard his wife reprove. "No one would be stupid enough."  
  
"If the Russians sent this bomb as the major said, then whatever other reason?" Dan Vassilovitch asked, using a scanner near Anderson by the detonator head. Vassilovitch was a radio astronomer interested in geology as a sideline. "It must be a world war -- we are all doomed anyway. This will likely be a prime target for the communists, so we can all be killed."  
  
Pappas threw down the tiny jeweler's screwdriver he was using to work at the timer machanism -- he heard a spring pop. "It is not World War III -- we are not all going to die unless we detonate this bomb by accident -- I tell you that!"  
  
He swallowed hard, and sighed loudly. His wife's hand touched at his and he looked into her eyes. "I love you," she whispered, then returned to her work.  
  
He returned to his, hearing young Tina. She was only nineteen and already held a doctorate and was working toward a second. "From this diagram I make, I can see the arrangement clearly enough," she said as she looked up. "This device was designed to detonate when it was tampered with. There is -- or there was -- no actual timer. When we opened the cowling we activated a circuit -- look for yourselves."  
  
Pappas picked up the cowling and examined the underside. A tiny magnetic clip stared back at him.  
  
"My God -- she is right. We have activated it ourselves!" His wife sank against him.  
  
Tina's voice came again. "The circuitry is eroding -- it appears there is less than fifteen minutes, vastly less I think. And then, it is all gone."  
  
Pappas swept his wife into his arms, kissing her head. "No!" He shouted the word into the darkness beyond the lighted laboratory table. And he heard the gunfire outside. It was drawing closer.  
  
***  
  
It was evident from the pattern of defense that whatever was being defended lay at the end of a long, narrow corridor. The corridor was like a spoke of a wheel, and at the end was their target, the hub.  
  
Batman and Sandman had been joined by six of the air police and the base commander. It was the base commander who spoke, through a bullhorn. The base commander said: "Many of you know me, my wife works here. My son goes to school here. The Air Force major you trusted, the orders he issued to your commanders -- all were false. You are protecting a dangerous weapon which will destroy us all, possibly in minutes. So many of us have died here tonight. Lay down your arms and we shall lay down ours. It is a time for trust."  
  
The base commander then placed his pistol on the floor and walked empty- handed toward the end of the corridor.  
  
Batman watched ahead of him now, as men stepped from the cover of doorways, holding their M-1 rifles as if they weren't quite sure what to do with them. He was reminded of a phrase attributed to Napoleon. A messenger arrived, Napoleon read the dispatch, then exclaimed, "Good God -- peace has broken out!"  
  
A security officer stepped from a doorway, weaponless. The base commander said, "Andy, you know me. We speak the truth. We can fight and die or find this bomb that is supposed to be laced with nerve gas together and disarm it."  
  
The uniformed security officer looked down at the floor, then up to the base commander. Batman watched. The security officer threw up his hands in disgust or surrender, the Caped Crusader wasn't sure which. He muttered a single word, "Yes," and shrugged. He started toward the base commander, arms spread out and the two men embraced.  
  
A corporal ran up to them, breathless, saluted the two senior officers and began to report. "Sir, we have cut the main generator's power supply into the laboratory, which is sometimes used as a demonstration operating theater. But the door's pneumatic lock is now inoperative and we can't pull it open."  
  
Batman watched the security officer as the man barked out orders and three men, big men, began working at the door.  
  
The colonel was speaking into a loud hailer, "This is imperative -- you must believe us. We will be entering your laboratory in moments. We wish to help you with the bomb. We know all the details, how you have been told it is a Russian weapon. It was brought here by a Nazi. Pappas, you are Jewish. Do you wish to serve the Nazi cause? Help us. There are crimefighters with us, friends, here, to help with disarming the bomb." Batman only wished that he could.  
  
And then an old man came up, a high ranking noncom. He saluted the colonel, said something and the colonel gave him the microphone. The air base commander told the two costumed crimefighters, "A girl in there, a scientist is his eldest daughter."  
  
The noncom said into the microphone, "Tina -- this is your father. The truth is the weapon in there will explode any minute, and you will die and so will I and all these good men out here with me and the men and women there with you. You must open this door."  
  
The man returned the microphone to the colonel. The pneumatic door had opened only a fraction of an inch, the men using bayonets as prybars. But the doors stuck closed.  
  
Batman felt sweat running down his face, wishing Hourman had come with them.  
  
Then he heard a voice through the crack on the other side of the door. It was a woman's voice. "The bomb will detonate in seven minutes. We cannot stop it, papa -- but I have released the lock."  
  
Batman waited, tensed, as the men continued to work on the door, prying it open now with comparative ease. He pushed through, running toward the center of the laboratory, the blond-haired young girl suddenly running beside him, saying, "Less than seven minutes now, I think. Are you a mystery man?"  
  
He looked at her, "Yes, how did you know?"  
  
"It's the mask and cape. You all look alike," she answered with a straight face.  
  
He reached the center of the laboratory, where a gaunt, bearded man stood looking at him. He said to Batman, "This is your work?" gesturing toward the device at the center of the table.  
  
"No. Can you stop it?" the Masked Manhunter asked.  
  
"No, we cannot," was all Pappas said, as he hugged a dark-haired, rather pretty woman close to his side.  
  
"I can order evacuation --" It was the voice of the air base commander.  
  
"If all cannot be taken to safety, none of us shall leave." It was a white- haired man.  
  
"Agreed," the bearded man nodded.  
  
Batman turned to the colonel. "He has a point."  
  
"Pappas?"  
  
"Yes. We'll have to risk getting the device away from here. I'll need your helicopter. I need the keys."  
  
The colonel's eyes flickered and he handed the chopper keys to Batman.  
  
The Caped Crusader nodded and pointed to the bomb. "Get some of your men to get this onto the roof and load her up and get your copilot to preflight it fast and get out."  
  
"We need to head for the Atlantic and I'll fly her out until I've got --" Batman continued.  
  
"You will die, my friend," The Sandman said matter-of-factly.  
  
"No kidding," Batman said. "Get that bomb moving."  
  
Sandman nodded, and the base commander barked orders.  
  
Four men came forward and began to move the weapon, walking as quickly as they could with it.  
  
Batman started after them, hearing the base commander saying, Northeast is your only hope, head for the open sea."  
  
The Masked Crimefighter from Gotham City broke into a run. The bearded man, Pappas, was beside him now. "You must be a minimum of ten miles away from any population center and the blast effect will be minimized if you can get as close to the water as possible before the bomb detonates."  
  
Batman only nodded, hearing the girl, Tina, saying, Only five minutes and forty-five seconds now, I think."  
  
"Wonderful, lady," an exasperated Caped Crusader said. At least he wouldn't have time to worry about an afterlife.  
  
He was at the stairwell. Sandman was somewhere but not in sight. He wanted to say good-bye, maybe given the man -- the closest one, here, to him -- a farewell message for Kathy, Alfred, Dick, and for Selina if she were found alive.  
  
And where was False-Face? he wondered.  
  
Batman reached the roof. There was still no sign of The Sandman as he ran toward the helicopter and climbed aboard, eyeing the red light flashing from the bomb. He didn't know if it meant anything or not. He had less than five minutes. At a maximum cruising speed of 229 miles per hour, it could make just a little less than four miles per minute. That made two and one half minutes until he was ten miles from the coast of Florida, maybe four minutes before he was at a safe spot over the water and then wait for detonation. "Shit," he stormed, as he feverishly worked the controls, getting airborne. Then he heard a voice from behind him.  
  
It was Sandman. "I couldn't let you upstage me -- or allow a friend to die alone. I calculate that in less than five minutes the blast will take place. In three we should be safely away from population centers. Give it an extra half minute for security."  
  
"Thanks for thinking of me," Batman rasped. He had the throttle all the way out, the compass heading northeast.  
  
The Sandman felt the muscles of his face tightening under his gas mask as he watched the second hand of his watch tick away his life.  
  
***  
  
False-Face opened the thin-bladed knife, slowly, carefully. He eyed the blade's target and moved the knife into position again slowly. He touched the blade to the skin, cutting through it, into the substance beneath. The piece of summer sausage cut now, he folded it neatly in half and ate it, looking at the old woman beside him aboard the passenger car, hearing the click of the rails. He smiled at her, gesturing with the sausage, the woman smiling back. He cut her a piece, feeling in a magnanimous mood.  
  
He handed her the sausage piece, then folded the knife closed after wiping the blade on a rag and placed it back inside his cloth purse and settled the purse on his lap. He replaced the sausage in the basket and closed his eyes, folding his hands over the skirt in his lap.  
  
The woman beside him spoke, and False-Face, in his old-woman's voice, answered that he was on his way to see his son, who was a student at a college in Atlanta. Mentally, he ticked off the time. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he opened his coat and unfastened the top two buttons of his black sweater, lifting the watch pinned to the front of his threadbare white blouse. It showed less than three minutes to detonation, but he would be too far to see anything.  
  
He let the watch fall to his sagging breast, rebuttoned his sweater and closed his eyes. The old woman spoke again and he opened his eyes to look at her. She was holding out a photograph of her son.  
  
False-Face smiled, opening his purse, fumbling through it and producing a picture of his son -- it was actually a picture of The Boomer as a young man, before he'd become the master bomber and False-Face's instrument for world domination.  
  
He replaced the photograph in his purse, listening to the woman's idle chatter.  
  
It would be less than two minutes now. And then only one step would remain -- the final step, the ultimate act of his master plan, at the seat of temporal power.  
  
He chatted with the old woman, waiting for the time to pass. It would be any moment now.  
  
***  
  
Batman realized that he and Sandman were going to die. They were less than two minutes out and more than twelve miles from the coast of Florida, as he reckoned it. The air base must've had some hotshot mechanic working on the choppers. The cruising speed of the helicopter seemed to be faster than what it was rated at.  
  
He looked below and saw nothing but the blue water of the Atlantic Ocean. He needed to get as low to the sea in order to minimize the spread of the nerve gas into the air.  
  
The Sandman stole a last glance to his watch -- perhaps a minute and half remained. He noticed that Batman was lowering the chopper to get as close to the water as possible.  
  
A thought struck him. Perhaps he could push the device from the helicopter and it would be under water when it exploded. He wasn't sure what kind of environmental damage it would cause -- but perhaps it was worth a shot!  
  
The Sandman got up from his seat opened the side door.  
  
"What are you doing?" Batman asked.  
  
"Going to get rid of this thing, maybe we'll be able to survive this after all."  
  
"But what about --?"  
  
"You got a better idea, Batman?"  
  
The Caped Crusader knew that he didn't and just continued flying the helicopter as fast it would go.  
  
Selina -- he thought of her, perhaps already dead, perhaps awaiting False- Face's pleasure -- and of False-Face getting away with it. Wildcat and the rest of the JSA were good -- maybe they would continue to help in the search and would eventually get False-Face. Though he'd never told them, he highly regarded the abilities of his fellow Justice Society members.  
  
"Selina," Batman whispered into the night, as the helicopter skimmed the waves of the ocean.  
  
The Sandman kept pushing the bomb toward the door. He calculated one minute was left.  
  
"This damn thing is heavier than I thought," he cried out.  
  
He pushed as hard as he could. It would only move a few inches at a time.  
  
Batman could hear The Sandman's groans as he struggled with his attempt to get rid of the deadly device. The red light on the bomb seemed brighter now.  
  
Sandman continued to push.  
  
His mind was counting down the seconds. "Fifty-five -- fifty-four -- fifty- three -- fifty-two --" He kept pushing, the helicopter continued moving fast, less than a hundred feet from the water.  
  
If he could just get this thing out the door, they might survive. The word "might" echoed in his head.  
  
Sandman kept pushing. He threw every once of strength into his effort. The helicopter was now less than twenty-five feet over the water, and Sandman's lungs ached with the air he gulped.  
  
The helicopter was just skimming over the waves. It dipped and The Sandman stopped momentarily.  
  
The device was nearing the open sliding door. His hands slipped as he pushed again. The helicopter seemed to accelerate. Sandman's muscles started to cramp.  
  
After planting his legs firmly, he gave the bomb one final push out the open door. His legs pushed so hard that they almost propelled him out the door, as well.  
  
Batman had watched as the bomb went out the door and shouted to Sandman, "Hang on -- we ...."  
  
Suddenly, there was a bright green light that lit up the darkness and the inside of the helicopter. Amazingly, Batman watched as the bomb floated in front of him and seemed to move. The device was enclosed in a brilliant green light. To his left, Batman saw a blonde figure wearing a red tunic, green pants and a dark cape waving to him.  
  
The Sandman was now standing right behind Batman who was in the pilot's seat. He looked out the window. He almost screamed, "It's --!"  
  
"Green Lantern," Batman finished for him.  
  
The two crimefighters in the helicopter watched as the bomb seemed to rocket upwards at incredible speed with the Green Lantern trailing behind it. Within a matter of a few seconds he was out of sight.  
  
Straining to look upwards, The Sandman, who was now in the copilot seat, saw a faint flash many miles up in the sky.  
  
Sandman was at a loss for words. He knew that Batman and himself had just been pulled from the jaws of death by the unexpected appearance of the Green Lantern. The emerald hero had grabbed the bomb that was laced with VX nerve gas and transported it so it could explode harmlessly into outer space.  
  
The helicopter was at full throttle. They were still alive.  
  
Batman felt The Sandman's left hand on his shoulder. "I'd say we won."  
  
The Caped Crusader nodded and turned the chopper to head back to Florida. They had beaten False-Face again -- but he still had ninety-eight VX nerve gas canisters in his possession. False-Face, Batman reflected, needed to be lucky only once. The members of the Justice Society of America needed to lucky all the time.  
  
***  
  
False-Face turned to the window. For an instant, he thought he had seen some kind of green glow at a great distance.  
  
He smiled.  
  
He had won the day -- or so he thought.  
  
One battle remained -- a great battle.  
  
From there to history.  
  
He turned to the old woman beside him, opening his purse, removing the slim- bladed knife, saying to her in his old woman voice, "Would you like more of my summer sausage? It will be a long train ride."  
  
The old woman answered, "I have some sandwiches and an apple. We can share them, perhaps?"  
  
False-Face smiled, turning in his seat, smoothing his clothes over his legs. He began to slice pieces of the summer sausage as the old woman beside him spread a handkerchief on her lap, like a tablecloth.  
  
The milk of human kindness -- it touched him.  
  
********************  
  
The Justice Society of America returns to do battle with the evil False- Face in Part 3 of this story that will be entitled, "JSA: Shell Shock," coming in a few months on FFN. 


End file.
